Great War Technolgy

Birth of a new weapon

Despite the fact that the plane was only 11 years old in 1914 and could barely accommodate a single person, no one thought it would be helpful at the time, but that all changed during WW1.

Fighter Planes

As aerial reconnaissance became increasingly common, the need for techniques to prevent enemy observation planes arose. One strategy was to fire on them from the ground, but this proved ineffective until guns that were more suited to the job became available. Another idea was to develop a system that allowed one plane to attack another. Pilots and observers on observation planes attempted to shoot down other planes with rifles and even handguns in the first such attempt, which quickly proved unsuccessful. Hand grenades, bricks, or even long ropes with grappling hooks were used by some pilots to assault planes below them.

Machine guns, on the other hand, tended to be huge and heavy, and only a handful were tiny and light enough to be used on an aeroplane.

The "interrupter gear," a timing device that synced the machine gun with the rotating propeller blades, was invented by a Dutch aircraft designer called Anton Fokker in mid-1915.

Signal Flags

before things like the telegraph,telephone and two-way radios many ships would communicate with each other with using a series of signal flags

Flag signal usually occurred when two ships are close to one another and they mostly communicated with flag signals when they were doing dangerous operations

Telephone

The telephone was developed by upgrading the telegraph

A telephone converts the sound of our voice into electrical signals that may be transferred over long distances via cables or other transmission medium, and then repeats those signals so we can hear them all at once.

Telephones were used to communicate between front-line Marines and Soldiers and their superiors on the Western Front during WWI. The US Army Signal Corps used 28,000 miles of wire and 32,000 miles of French communication poles to build 2,000 miles of telegraph and telephone pole lines.

Telegraph

The electric telegraph transmits an electrical charge to a receiving device. The flow is stopped whenever the transmitter presses the telegraph key, resulting in an audible pulse at the receiving station. Because it cannot transmit sound or data, it communicates solely through pulses.

On the other end, the receiver decodes the pulses in order to decode the message.

The telegraph was quickly embraced because it allowed information to be conveyed relatively swiftly between telegraph stations, as opposed to the weeks required by a horse and rider.

Cooling

the machine guns had water jackets on the barrels

They would need large water supplies around them at all times

it would take about two minutes for the gun to overheat

Facts

they would weigh from 30-60 kg

The machine guns would be placed on flat Tripods

They would need around 4-6 soliders to fully operate the machine gun

Ammunition

The machine guns could fire 400-600 rounds per minute!

They would need massive amounts of ammunition with them at all times

At the end of the war the number of rounds fired was almost doubled

For the first time in history, submarines played a significant military role during World War I.

Submarines were used by both the British and German navies against opposing warships from the start.

From 1915, Franz Becker commanded German submarines, often known as U-boats. He remembered a run-in with a British ship

Creation

not just one individual was responsible for creating the tank

The design was created throughout the 18th century

Instead a bunch of different technology inventions lead to the tank

But the first form of the Tank was shown by the British army.

First use

15 September 1916 by Captain H. W. Mortimore

the attack was itself successful

In April 1917 the French deployed 128 tanks

Facts

A six-cylinder petrol engine was installed in these cars.

These tanks had an eight-man crew, with four troops in command and four gunners.

These weapons were 28 tonnes in weight (25,401 kilograms).

Creation

People assumed the Germans were the ones who invented poison gas

the French were the ones who used it first and invented it

First Used

Tear gas was used for the first time on August 14, 1914, by the French against the Germans

October of 1914, the German army launched shells at the French that included a chemical irritant designed to cause a severe sneeze fit

Then on January,1915 the Germans used tear gas on the Eastern from for the first time

However, the first poison gas - in this case, chlorine - was used for the first time on April 22, 1915

Different gases

Mustard Gas

Mustard gas was the most odourless chemical, and it produced blisters on both the inside and outside of the body, making it worse than chlorine and phosgene gas.

the Germans used it on the Russians for the first time in 1917

Chlorine Gas

produces a greenish-yellow cloud that smells of bleach and immediately irritates the eyes, nose, lungs and what ever body parts get exposed to it first

First used on April 22, 1915

Phosgene Gas

During World War I, phosphorus was employed widely as a choking agent.

This gas was responsible for most of the deaths with gas

First used on 19 December 1915