TYPES OF WARFARE USED IN

WWI

TRENCH WARFAREGas and guns

First time trenches used extensively in warNarrow zig-zags – one behind other8 feet deepDuckboards to stop drowningRats, lice, dead friends

Wet, cold, hungry and tired

GAS A Slow and painful death

New weapons of WWI

Mustard: faint smell. Yellowish – blistered and burned all exposed skin.Chlorine/Diphosgene: dissolved lungs by forming acid when in contact with moist areas (used in projector cannisters later in war)

Tearing agents also used – like today’s mace.

Battling the Gases

GUNS - little onesCanadians get Ross Rifles - jam with mud.

Steal Enfield Rifles from dead Brits.

Bayonets? Useless in modern warfare

Machine Guns Introduced – Britain - Vickers; German - Maxim

German Maxim: Designed by an

American. Killed 90% of casualties of first day of the Somme (more than

20,000 men)

AND BIG ONES (Artillery) First big guns on boats –

needed at Front and so converted to land use

Howitzers/Mortars – big guns on wheels/or rails – shells fired up and landed down.

Cannon – fires shells head on.

Weighed tonsBest Howitzer could fire 70

miles in 170 seconds- but no accuracy.

Technology of killing

British 60-lb Gun

Howitzer: These siege guns were used by the Germans to soften forts. The shells they fired weighed 1,786 lbs and they could fire one every 6 minutes.

TANKS

New in WWIArmed with big guns (shells) and machine guns (bullets)Weighed between 6 and 30 tonnes!Crews from 3-20Many could go over trenchesMade to move in the mud

Canadians on a British Mark IV:

Top speed 4 mph

Good Armour

Armed with either 2 6 lb. guns and 3 machine guns or 5 machine guns

NOISY & SLOW BUT DEADLY

British Whippet: 8 mph, but less

firepower. 3 man crew. Gas tank

outside!

German Sturmpanzerwagen

A7V

Sturm = Storm, Panzer = Amour, Wagen = Car

Best armour, 1 main gun, 6 machine guns

War on the waterNavy thought to be key to war - build-up

Battleships armed to teeth – Dreadnaughts and Battle Cruisers

German U-boats taking out British ships

British stop sailing. Fleet sits!

HMS Dreadnought –

Built 1906 – More than 30

models followed before WWI!!!

U-BOATS

UC 44 Class U-boat: 1) Aft torpedo tubes 2) Electric motor 3) Main engine

4) Control room 5) Mine tubes 6) Forward torpedo tubes 7) Crew quarters

Took out supply ships too: Lusitania which brought U.S.

into War.

In 1917 there were 146 U-boats on

patrol

BATTLE IN THE SKIESZeppelins used by Germans to bomb civilians (only 557 died!)Barely 10 years after Wright’s first flight – planes used to wage warHundreds of models were rushed off production lines

German Zeppelin

56 mph; deadly bomb

droppers

PLANES AND ACES I

Sopwith Camel – most victorious model: Canadian aces loved this plane! Roy Brown took out Manfred von Richthofen flying this plane. Don McLaren shot down 54 planes in his Camel!

Neiuport 17 -

Flown by famous Billy Bishop: 25 victories in 12 days

Planes and aces II

Fokker D. VII: The best German plane of the war: Richthofen’s (The Red Baron, with 80 victories) favorite.

Albatross III: An improvement on two earlier models… but the wings kept breaking

And it all adds up to

DEATHBritish: 1 million (Canada 60,000)France: 1.3 millionRussia: 1.7 millionGermany & Allies: 3.5 million

Losses of life per day: More than 5,500 people!!!