Earlier radios=no trench warfare?

thorr97

Banned
Short answer: no.

Longer answer: Still no. And here's why...

What caused the static nature of the Western Front in World War One was the overwhelming number of troops involved and the inability of either side to keep those troops supplied once they'd move away from their rail heads.

Note the fluidity of the engagements on other fronts throughout the war. Those involved far fewer troops and they were deployed against more thinly held lines. Once a breakthrough on those lines was achieved, the advancing unit essentially had free reign to go as far as they could. The units involved were small enough and light enough that pack animal logistics could support them, more or less.

On the Western Front this was anything but the case. The amount of logistical support of an advancing heavy unit required far outstripped what could be readily moved across the battlefield by horse drawn logistics. And as the nature of the battlefield often meant roads were rendered impassable to the vehicles of the day, pack animal logistics was as good as it was liable to get. Which meant that any breakthrough quickly ran out of the logistical support it needed to keep going. And it also quickly ran into thickly held enemy lines that were falling back onto their railheads so they weren't lacking in their logistics.

It wasn't until motorized transport of sufficient capability to operate off road was developed that this paradigm could be broken.

So, earlier portable radios would not have changed that aspect of the fighting.
 
Only two things could carry a load across ground that had been shelled for days, weeks, months and years, one was four legged and very slow. The other had Caterpillar tracks and was even slower.

Or carry the tracks to where that was

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Or have tracks themselves
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Notice the ruck with a small tank on it is sitting on a modern bit of pavement. Even before the war the roads in what would become the western front were relatively sketchy. After heavy loads, troops, maintenance well below required levels, and then throw in the odd shelling and the roads became rutted tracks when dry and quagmires when wet. The trucks of the day had limited power, were not terribly rugged, and the tires did not have the tread and grip of today's vehicles. The truck with the treads, an early half track experiment, illustrate how the normal truck seen above was inadequate.

Sure you could use trucks to bridge part of the gap between the closest railroad and where you had to go to horse/mules, but off road was simply not doable. Furthermore assuming your troops made a breakout rupturing the front lines, now you had a zone from the rear of your tranches to the rear of the enemy trenches (and there were several lines of them) that were impassible by vehicles. Even tanks had to carry fascines to drop in wider trenches to cross them. Absent flanks, you now have a several mile gap where moving any supplies, certainly by truck, is impossible. This makes sustaining a breakthrough, absent a complete enemy collapse, basically impossible.
 
Notice the ruck with a small tank on it is sitting on a modern bit of pavement. .

Tanks were moved into position that way.

In US logging areas, there was nothing but dirt, and they commonly carried heavier loads than the early tanks
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For the off road, Hard to say this wasn't as bad as shell churned earth for this Jeffery Quad
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That's why US companies quickly started moving away from horse drawn gear after 1910. Even in that slop, Trucks did the job better
 
WWI planes did carry radios they were used by Artillery spotting planes. They were simple spark transmitter only sets and were used to alter the aim of a gun that was firing on a pre arranged set of co ordinates. The plane couldnt speak to a Battery but could use a code to tell the gunners up a bit left a bit and when the ranging gun hit its mark send a signal for all guns to fire.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/observation.htm



That's what I read, too. Not voice, just telegraphy, up/over/hit-etc. I just wondered how large and heavy sets like that would be. Pics from ww2 show there were back pack radios that required two men, one of them carried batteries.
 
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That's what I read, too. Not voice, just telegraphy, up/over/hit-etc. I just wondered how large and heavy sets like that would be. Pics from ww2 show there were back pack radios that required two men, one of them carried batteries.

It's my understanding that in the World War One era there were occasionally radios in trenches, tanks, air craft etc. As others have pointed out they were quite crude by our standards. I've also seen photos of field phones (ie telephones with wires) in use by forward troops in World War One and this was common in World War Two as well.

Man pack (and even hand held) voice radios were in use in the World War Two era. That being said I'd argue that ubiquitous and reliable batlefield voice communications for infantry platoons and other forward units wasn't really avaliable as people today might understand it until radios similar to the PRC 25 came into service in the Vietnam War era.
 
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Man pack (and even hand held) voice radios were in use in the World War Two era. That being said I'd argue that ubiquitous and reliable batlefield voice communications for infantry platoons and other forward units wasn't really avaliable as people today might understand it until radios similar to the PRC 25 came into service in the Vietnam War era.

Over 100,000 SCR-536 voice 'Handy-Talkie' were made by 1945.

After D-Day, was at one per platoon. That's pretty widespread
 
Over 100,000 SCR-536 voice 'Handy-Talkie' were made by 1945.

After D-Day, was at one per platoon. That's pretty widespread
The SCR 536 may have been widely issued but I don't consider it to be in the same league as the PRC 25. Other than not having frequency hopping and voice scrambling I'd argue a Vietnam era PRC 25 would be reasonably viable today. (Although spare parts might be hard to find ?) I wouldn't make a similar argument about the SCR 536.
 
Over 100,000 SCR-536 voice 'Handy-Talkie' were made by 1945.

After D-Day, was at one per platoon. That's pretty widespread

The SCR536 was very useful but the problem was they were short ranged (about 1/4 a mile in built up areas up to about a mile in the open) and only useful for section/platoon level communication. Still they were better than the British No38 which weighed 13 pounds for a similar range. You still needed manpack sets like the 40 pound SCR300 to speak to Company level.
 
The SCR 536 may have been widely issued but I don't consider it to be in the same league as the PRC 25. Other than not having frequency hopping and voice scrambling I'd argue a Vietnam era PRC 25 would be reasonably viable today. (Although spare parts might be hard to find ?) I wouldn't make a similar argument about the SCR 536.

Being under a mile in range, and purely tactical, no real need for the extra security given the paucity of radio gear lower than the company level in the Wehrmacht. A huge advantage.

but Backpack set vs handheld?

The SEAsia equivalent was the PRC-6 was it was FM, but similar range to the earlier WWII AM set, and still tube based, though with mini tubes that were more rugged, and ability for external antenna and handset
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but otherwise really similar
 
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