Minimize casualties in WW1

And if that does not work have the German plan work out with the 5th French and the BEF caught up and the 1st and 2nd French too far up in AL to stop the fall of Paris.
 
I would extend that one to the whole world. I don't think we have become wiser. We just have been a little more careful.

Not so sure if we’re even more careful. it’s what the cost is in dollars not in the personnel that’s the driving force, in the west at least.
The butchers are still out there, war is still killing human beings in their thousands. They’re just not ‘our boys’.
 
Honestly though, the military doesn't learn this way. Without WWI, the UK doesn't develop tanks and all countries would continue to use aircraft in their "intended" recon role. We normally learn from our mistakes/experiences on the battlefield and rarely using forethought.
The tank was invented by the Navy - the largest heavy engineering organisation in the Empire. The diesel powered ocean submarine was perfected by 1914 - about 15 years of effort from nothing. Machine gun armed aircraft were being developed in 1913. The military were capable of learning, see the article above.
 
Refferred to as the War to end all Wars, the tremendous bloodletting was on a scale unheard of in human history. From incomtent generals who wantonly sacrificed men to their deaths from Bloody Butcher Haig to the Blowhard Joffre. Was there any way tactics could have been developed to minimize the massive casualty levels without experimenting with beating one's head against a wall for 4 years hoping for a different result? Maybe not mass one's troops so tightly in theatres where an Offensive was obvious? Maybe limit one's objectives instead of all these grand plans that would deal a deathstroke on their opponents? Maybe a more numerous and better trained Red Cross? Maybe both sides could wait it out until the blockade starves either side into surrender or a game changing weapon could be developed and manufactured in enough numbers to tip the scales?

Well, casualties could certainly have been lessened if antibiotics were developed earlier: https://www.historynet.com/penicillin-wonder-drug-world-war-ii.htm
 
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So frankly the Generals should have been working out solutions for these already known problems for a full generation at least. But the unfortunate tendency for an Army to resist change is very evident here.

Add in two noticeable changes in this war the rate of fire as a result of the large number of machine guns / the perfection of bolt action rifles and the airplane.

The problem was that starting at the end of the ACW and getting worse in each war thier after we sea most maneuvering coming when one side or the other surprises the other side and hits them in an unexpected location. Or with huge numbers. But if the two relatively equal sized army’s hit head on the results are not so good. But of course the aircraft and the ability to move troops (mostly via trains but trucks and cars start to add to this) means it is very hard to virtually impossible to truly surprise the other side. The best you get is one side seeing what is going on but not understanding what they are looking at.
The problem was not that European military theorists would have been unable to understand that war had changed.

But for the time it seemed that there were no alternatives to massive conscription armies.

And since general mobilizations were so expensive, it was (correctly) estimated that prolonged war would cripple the economy.

So one had a strong impetus to go on the offensive and seek decisive battle as the only way out of the abhorrent threat of a stalemated slaughterhouse.

Accepting the logical conclusion - that war would no longer be a viable part of European diplomacy as a quick way to achieve results - would have contradicted centuries of tradition and the nationalistic, Social Darwinistic mindset of the era.
 
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June 7, 1912, Col. Lewis demonstrates his new MG from a Wright Model B

The Army wasn't too interested in the gun, or arming aircraft, for that matter

Vickers EFB1
World’s First Fighter Aircraft

The British Admiralty began the search for a viable fighter before the start of the Great War (Vickers received a contract from the Admiralty on November 19, 1912 for an experimental fighting biplane armed with a machine gun). Even though Vickers was unsuccessful in developing a real fighter aircraft at that time, the research lead to the development of the E.F.B.5 and F.B.5 Gunbus which proved to be an effective aircraft for its time.

vickers-efb1-airplane-1.jpg
 
For a baseline comparison with crime versus war.

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Remember reading an article in a Canadian newspaper years ago, when complaints were high concerning deaths of troops in Afghanistan concluded, that statistically young men were safer in a combat zone that in ‘safe’ urban homeland areas. Statistics can be manipulated.
 
Not sure but it seems laying smoke screens was not a thing in WWI. You would think that could be useful going over the top.

Also earlier mine-clearing line charge (also effective against barb wire).

 
Not sure but it seems laying smoke screens was not a thing in WWI. You would think that could be useful going over the top.

Battle of Hamel in July 1918.
Prior to the attack, the artillery spent two weeks conducting "conditioning firing" in the sector, firing gas and smoke shells at the same time every day before dawn, while strict operational security procedures were implemented.

In the actual attack, only smoke was used so the Germans thought it was gas and had their masks on, impacting their situational awareness.

As a side note, John Monash, the General who planned Hamel would have replaced Haig in 1919 (Lloyd George said Haig's replacement was to be a Dominion officer (Currie or Monash) but later said Monash (Currie was 'tainted') . Not bad for a Dominion Reservist from the artillery, Jewish and of German descent.
 
Battle of Hamel in July 1918.


In the actual attack, only smoke was used so the Germans thought it was gas and had their masks on, impacting their situational awareness.

As a side note, John Monash, the General who planned Hamel would have replaced Haig in 1919 (Lloyd George said Haig's replacement was to be a Dominion officer (Currie or Monash) but later said Monash (Currie was 'tainted') . Not bad for a Dominion Reservist from the artillery, Jewish and of German descent.

You would think something this simple would be implemented a lot earlier than the tank.

The Bangalore Torpedo was invented in 1912.

Bangalores were short and time consuming to deploy. Line charges were just a string of bombs propelled by a rocket and wire could be cleared a hundred yards at a time.
 
Bangalores were short and time consuming to deploy. Line charges were just a string of bombs propelled by a rocket and wire could be cleared a hundred yards at a time.
I don't disagree. We went to the moon before we thought it was a good idea to put wheels on luggage.
 
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