Errrr, elephants are recorded to have been employed against Alexander the Greats Army in the sub continent. More than a century before Hannibal.
Laser guided weapons were used in the latter stages of the Vietnam war. Designed to destroy both the Paul Doumer and Than ho bridges.
Declan
OP here. Forget I said battle. Rather than have this devolve pleasurably into a chain of first major weapon uses, maybe let’s stay with: wars or campaigns down to battles where the game changer was hands down one side had something technological the other didn’t.
I’m sure cases where sigint is involved are legion, and except for hardcore specialists are not well known, yet clearly fit this criterion. I mean, we know about Enigma and the various spy satellites, but those are just the most spectacular.
Perhaps we should allow things that don’t in themselves or by others use go boom, cut, etc. as well.
Agreed, hence the word organized although *planned *might be more appropriate. Got a lot of time on your hands their on the east coast of Taiwan, eh? 
Actually, I was agreeing with you.
Well, spending the time on the Dope that should be spent studying Chinese, but let me decompress a bit.
In April, 1962 the Union Army first used the rifled cannon (as compared to the smooth bored cannon in use for centuries) against a brick fortification at the Battle of Fort Pulaski, GA, and the increased range and accuracy of the bombardment made traditional coasted defense techniques basically obsolete. The Parrott Rifle style had been in development for three years, but this was the first combat deployment.
1962?
Also probably fiction.
Also, whether fiction or not, it’s not even the first account of slingers in the Bible. The book of Judges talks about a corps of elite left handed slingers from the tribe of Benjamin during their war with the other tribes.
The US Civil War’s Battle of the Crater seems pretty unique and it’s even sort of named after the “weapon”.
Union troops spent weeks constructing a mine under Confederate lines, packed it with explosives, then set it off, dropping that section of the line into a crater.
Using explosives wasn’t unique and I’m pretty sure that using tunnels wasn’t unique but the combination may have been.
It didn’t work too well.
In fact, digging tunnels and using them to blow up an unsuspecting enemy is an ancient form of warfare:
A prominent example would be the 2nd siege of Vienna in 1683 in which the defenders employed “counter-digging” as a defensive measure. The “mineurs” were an elite force in a number of armies, not only the Turkish.
Ia Drang, first use of Air Assault tactics.
Siege of Constantinople, 1204: Poking a guy through a hole in the city walls, having him pop out the other side and start swinging a sword like a madman, somehow resulting in victory.
(This actually happened, as recounted by the chronicler Robert de Clari, who’s brother Aleaumes was the first Crusader through into the city. As he was wiggling through the hole, Robert grabbed hold of his foot, only for Aleaumes to kick him off and emerge on the other side.)
It was also the first successful teleportation though time of war material. Prior to 1962/1862 only organics had been successfully send back in time.
The Battle of the Crater suffered from the same problem as Operation Cobra, a World War II tank offensive opened by the American 8th Air Force drenching German positions with bombs.
In both cases, the use of explosives was so overwhelming that not only was the defense temporarily neutralized, the opposing offense failed to get going.
About the Cobra bombardment, it’s been written:
but the problem was, the ground offensive took too long to get started, allowing the Germans time to recover (the German army was specifically trained to recover quickly from tactical crises). Same issue marred the Crater battle (although there were plenty of other things going wrong with that sad affair). Union forces stood gawping at the titanic hole blown in the Confederate trenches, and took many minutes to begin crossing no-man’s-land, allowing the Confederates to bring up reserves and plug the gap.
Moral of the story: Massive shock and awe can buy you a short grace period. Don’t waste it. And hanging way back to avoid the possibility of friendly fire just means the certainty of unfriendly fire.
Mongol seige of Caffa, 1346 - first (as far as I know) and to date most devistatingly effective use of biological weapons in missiles.
I know that putting dead bodies in wells and the like has been used from time immemorial, but I don’t know if using diseased bodies in catapults happened before - though I’d be surprised if no-one had done it previously, this is certainly the battle best (and in fact, only) known because of the use of this weapon - in that, if the Mongols had not used this weapon, no-one today would remember the seige of Caffa.
It is credited with spreading the Black Death to Europe (though of course it may have spread anyway). If so, it can indirectly take credit for a bigger death toal than any other weapon ever used in a single battle!
From the original account:
Although you are correct (and contrary to popular perceptions) that tanks en masse were first used during the Battle of the Somme, said use can hardly be what that battle is best known for. Unequivocally, and absolutely, the Battle of the Somme is remembered for the slaughter it engendered, commencing as did the battle itself, on the first day - July 1, 1916.
The siege of Alkmaar (1573) was the first time the Dutch successfully defeated an enemy with water:
They punched through dikes and the Spanish forces were forced to withdraw.
It inspired a complex defence system relying on water and a series of forts, the Dutch water line (hollandse waterlinie en Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie). It was obsoleted after Hitler flew his Luftwaffe over it.
Of course Mozes did his thing a lot earlier but that wasn’t a war I think.
According to the OP’s revised criteria, pretty much the entire Scramble For Africa in the 19th Century worked (for the Europeans) because they had guns and the people who lived there didn’t (or had old, crappy guns and not new, advanced ones like the Europeans had).
As Hilaire Belloc once wrote:
Whatever happens,
We have got the Maxim Gun
And they have not.
That’s a pretty good one; the Mongols were supposed to have done something similar in attacking Sung China, but offensively (opened the dykes to inundate an enemy city).
My own contribution is the Persian attack on Babylon, in which they diverted the river Euphrates to lower the water level at night so as to sneak into the city through the harbour defences (which were weak): this is recorded in Herodotus’ account and of course in the Biblical book of Daniel (the famous “writing on the wall” incident):