WEEK 4 Day 1

CLASS 1- TUESDAY January 28, 2014

Lecture Notes:

·         WW1 was the most terrible war ever known by men. Almost everyone on both sides of the war imagined that the war would be over quickly. This was because of the new ‘mechanized’ warfare that was available at the time.

·         For the first time, automobiles and airplanes were used, tanks came into being, U boats, dreadnoughts, rapid-fire and long-distance cannon, howitzers and mortars.

·         Germany’s plan on rapid advancement never came to light, as they got ‘bogged down’ in northern France and Belgium. The British and French could not push back the Germans. Due to the intense shelling, trench warfare came into existence, and the lines became fixed and almost never changed throughout the war.

·         A “No Man’s Land” existed between the trenches of a few hundred meters, heavily shrouded with one of the most effective of the “new” weapons, BARBED WIRE.  This so effectively blocked the advance of the enemy that they could be “mowed down” by the thousands with machine gun fire before they ever reached the other side. Thousands and thousands of men on both sides died this way.

·         The war turned into a battle of artillery, the weapon of choice for the Germans being the Howitzer, and the British used the “18-Pounder”. Both had different strategies for use, ad the British gun was a “Direct” weapon and the Howitzer and “Indirect” weapon. This describes the firing pattern and purpose of the round. The British gun used a flatter trajectory, and directly hit enemy personnel.

·         The German Howitzer, however, was indirect, as the explosion was what killed the enemy, not the actual round fired.

·         The 18-pounder could not a highly parabolic trajectory, thus causing it to lose effectiveness in trench warfare. The German Howitzer, however, could “lob” its rounds directly into the British and French trenches.

Discussion and Reflection: None Today

              Homework:  None