Army weapons and tactics

Britain contributed technical innovation, industrial and financial power, and military manpower to the Allied victory. Hydrophones, tanks and aircraft are obvious examples of new weapons, and hardly suggest industrial backwardness or military conservatism. However, innovation with traditional weapons was no less important. New scientific artillery techniques made a bigger contribution to the defeat of the German army in 1918 than the more publicised tank. Even new weapons depended upon tactical innovation to be effective. The army s success was possible only when the different arms - artillery, infantry, tanks (when available) and aircraft - had learned to operate together. The navy s success over the U-boat required the adoption of the convoy system as well as the development of hydrophones. 

The campaign demonstrated the validity of the new Sixth Army policy on tactical doctrine and servicing. Flame thrower operator casualties were light, malfunctions rare, and assault teams successful in the large majority of their missions. Japanese bimker, cave, and dug-out defenses on Leyte were elaborate and often ingenious. The success of the flame thrower pointed up the merits of the weapon and the training and skill of the operators. 

Considerable training had been accomplished in connection with the projected mobilization of chemical combat troops. The composition of these troops and the tactics of their employment in conjunction with field armies were studied at service schools and in correspondence courses. The CWS expected that gas warfare would be resumed where it had left off in 1918 that the scale of gas casualties suffered by the American Army would be reduced because of improved defensive techniques and that gathering momentum in the United States in the production of gas munitions during the final phases of World War I would quickly be regained in a new war so as to assure dominance in this field. In the view of the Chemical Warfare Service, at least, gas was a normal military weapon and, as a result of progressive training, the theory of its employment had become integrated into the main stream of Army tactical doctrine. 

Fig. 3-16. Chemical agents used per year by major belligerents in World War I, in thousands of tons. Data source Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The Rise of CB Weapons. Vol 1. In The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare. New York, NY SIPRI 1971 128. Cited by King CR. A Review of Chemical and Biological Warfare During World War I. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md US Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity 1979 Table 17, page 45. AMSAA-Tactical Operations Analysis Office Interim Note T-18.

It is obvious that use of the chemical weapon remains possible. This textbook documents this concern on the part of the U.S. Army Medical Department. I therefore believe that it is the responsibility of the U.S. military medical community to prepare to operate in a chemical environment. Fighting a chemical war will markedly hinder our medical, tactical, and operational capacity (problems well discussed in this textbook), and cause long-term postexposure residual effects. Thus, students of this topic may still find relevance in the words that Sir Charles Bell (who was a surgeon at Waterloo in 1815) wrote in 1812 ... 

Unprecedented destruction was an inevitable result of this new war of materiel. By the end of November 1914, the war had seen the end of pre-war sttategic assumptions based on men and mobility. The Western Front had become a warren of trenches and obstacles, with armies reduced to deadlock and stalemate. Innovations in weapons were driven by tactical necessities. New weapons systems dominated the terrain. Above all, there was the artillery, as Strachan has put it, In the First World War, the artillery was the agent of industrial and social mobilization . While... 

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