How Did Ww1 Changed The World Of Warfare

How WW1 weapons changed the world of warfare “European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience changed the way people referred to the glamour of battle; they treated it no longer as a positive quality but as a dangerous illusion,” Virginia Postrel. WW1 was the first war to truly tear away from the fantasy of battle, and replaced it with the brutal reality of widespread death. Weapons, and upgrades to existing weapons, introduced in WW1 forever changed modern warfare. World War 1 introduced and upgraded many staples of modern anti personal weapons. These include, but are not limited to; rifles, shotguns, flamethrowers, grenades, mortars,

What was the reason for this renaissance in close quarters combat? It was because the bayoneted rifle. The previously popular weapon, wasn’t very practical in the trenches. It was to long for the tight spaces of the trenches, often getting “stuck”. This meant that new weapons were required to fight man to man. One such weapon was the pump action shotgun. It was popularized by the U.S. military and was lethal in the trenches. The tactical shotgun of today is used for storming buildings and fighting in close quarters. The combat knife also saw its first use the trenches and is highly effective to this day. Another weapon that was popularized in WW1 trench war was the grenade. This weapon allowed soldiers so simple throw a grenade into the enemy trench and le the following explosion do the dirty work.“To the horror of many commanders, the grenade threatened to supplant the rifle as the infantryman’s chief weapon.”(Wilkin, Bernard). The grenade is now used in nearly every military force, especially the U.S., use it today. They now use this weapon for attacking anything from soldiers to destroying

Before WW1 air planes were used primarily for observation and for gathering intelligence. In WW1 a Dutch inventor, working for the Germany, developed a way of allowing machine guns to fire through the propeller. This sparked the first “dog fights”. These midair confrontations helped pave the way for new and better ways of fighting in mid air. Now the use of missiles have widely replaced mounted machine guns in aerial combat however the premise still remains the same to this day. In WW1 the airplane had an unforeseen use. Dropping bombs. By the end of WW1 coordinated aerial bombardments were used frequently by both sides. Every war since has used this new way of delivering explosives extensively. In WW2 the U.S.A. used airplanes to drop the atom bomb. The atom bomb was the most deadly weapon ever used in warfare. The atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima Japan killed over eighty thousand people in the initial blast and killed thousands more due to radiation poisoning. Without the use of the airplane in war this wouldn’t have been possible. It is clearto see that the development of aerial combat in WW1 has affected modern warfare in several