Short Essay: Weapons Of World War I

Weapons of World War I

World War I, ‘The Great War.’ Over 60 million men fought in the war to end all wars, it ended nothing. The conditions and state the battlefields were left were indescribable, all because of the newly introduced weapons and weapon systems. These newly introduced weapons proved fatal to each other and the causalities stacking up to 17 million deaths and over 20 million wounded. The most fatal weapons during the war was artillery/ naval bombardment/ aircraft, tanks, machine guns, rifles and poison gases.

Rifles

The British standard rifle was the Lee-Enfield.303, and was fed by a magazine of ten .303 calibre rounds. The bolt action Lee-Enfield was robust, reliable rifle and suited the harsh conditions of trench warfare.

Artillery barrages were weaken up the lines of the enemy before an infantry assault and the shelling’s could last for weeks. A bombardment on German lines during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 lasted for two weeks! Over 4.5 million shells were fired from British artillery batteries from over 3,000 guns.

Field guns like the British Howitzer Mk1 fired 2 290lb shells a minute. They were used throughout the whole of the war by the British, American, Canada, Belgium and the Russian Empire. The Howitzer weighted 5 tons and a total of 650 guns were built. They were used in both world wars and in many battles. It fired high explosive shells and could fire up to 9km’s

Germany had a different type of gun, the Paris gun. The Paris gun was given its name by the range the gun could shoot, several which were used to bombard Paris in World War I. The rail gun fired multiple shells towards Paris from over 70 miles away. Made by ‘Krupp’s’ a German gun manufacturer , it had a 36 metre long barrel and could fire up to 25 miles into the air. Both weapons had devastating effects to each side, causing havoc upon trenches and causing many causalities.

Poison