The development in weaponry that had the greatest single impact on the war was the invention of the rifled musket. The weapon of choice before the war was muskets that had no spin on them. The new rifles solved old technical problems of other muskets. They had a spiral to spin the bullets faster, straighter, farther, and with more accuracy to 500 yards. In the premodern era, they only shot 50 yards. These rifles made it possible for soldiers to shoot with greater accuracy from a greater distance. It made battlefields large scale. The modernized guns and bullets are developed and used widely from the Civil War (1861-1865). The new technology of weapons eventually inspired trench warfare. ...view middle of the document...
This gave generals a new source of firepower over great distances. Sadly though, many of those officers had no idea on how to incorporate these new weapons or how to go about adjusting their tactics.WWI was also the first time that the tank was ever introduced into the battlefield. These first tanks were slow, inaccurate and very big. The first tanks were so bad that they never really influenced the war. However, it did bring about new ideas on how future wars could be fought. In WWI, tanks were used as direct support of the infantry. This means that the tank would move up through the barbed wire and mine fields while the infantry would follow directly behind it.WWI was also the first war that weapons of mass destruction were ever used such as gas. The Germans were the first to use this new deadly weapon.A good book to read on WWI is "All Quiet on the Western Front." It is much of the information about trench warfare on the Western front. Soldiers dug miles of complex 8-foot-deep corridors in the mud of eastern France and virtually lived in them nearly four years. Life in the trenches was riddled with disease, malnutrition, and the continuous threat of death. Going "over the top" was one of the most popular techniques of fighting in the war. It is the chosen and ineffective offensive style during trench warefare. It involved large numbers of troops charging out of the trench and running toward the enemy's trench. Soldiers' mental well-being decreased more and more as they saw each and every one of their fellow soldiers get wounded or in some case even killed. T...
