This might need some pre-1900 PODs but what if the defence had a weaker advantage over the offence during World War I? Suppose military observers pay better attention to developments during the American Civil and Russo-Japanese Wars, leading to some more funding for technology that might thwart the strong advantage afforded by machine guns, barbed wire, and entrenched positions. I suppose you could get some modest improvements in artillery technology and military use of aircraft, but the biggest divergence here would be if the tank was developed some years before the war leading them to be employed from almost the start rather than waiting until 1916. Would this reduce the length of the overall war and lead to the actual implementation of something resembling Plan 1919 in the middle of the conflict?
WI Weaker Defensive Advantage in WWI
- Thread starter Marius Mazzini
- Start date
How about more extensive use of heavier man portable firepower? Say earlier development of rocket launchers, rifle grenades, and lighter automatic weapons? I've heard something akin to the M79 could have been developed much earlier.
Or having battery technology being further along allowing man portable radio sets.
Or having battery technology being further along allowing man portable radio sets.
Panzerfausts could have been made in WWI for portable up to 150 yard HE delivery, no real need for the HEAT effect.
There were lightweight MGs, like the Lewis and Madsen, but for various reasons , were not adopted early.
The electronics was almost there, the designs for man portable radios was there by 1917 for CW/Morse that would comm back to HQ. Most of the work is on the receiver side, once super-hetrodyne circuits are used, but will need 350+ volts of battery, but the current requirements are real low, unlike the heater for the tube(s), that were 6 or 12 volts, and used a lot of current
By the '20s, there were voltage multiplier circuits so the 'B' Battery could be 'only' 45 or 67 volts
There's not as much need for new technology but better tactics and very small scale improvements: hand grenades, more light LMG's, less visible uniforms etc. I would say that tanks are not that important; small unit tactics, indirect fire procedures and signals are. This could well prevent the formation of the continuous trench lines. All this could be made by astute observation of Boer and Russo-Japanese wars. Moreover, there would be 9 years of time to make improvements. Of course, considering the rather open dissemination of information in pre-WW I years other powers would take notice.
British adoption would make no difference in first stages of WWI. How about the French, for a change?
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More and more durable field telephones might be more realistic goal and achievable by practically no pre-WWI electronics improvements.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
The trick is pulling this off without having a doctrine that presumes the "six month war", which is hard to do given nobody expected the economy to be able to tolerate a long fully mobilized war (and going in without a large mobalization is liable to get you curbstomped. It dosen't matter if the enemy is half reservists if there's three times as many of him). Your best bet is probably developments in the artillery park and the building up of pre war shell stockpiles and more efficent and larger scale chemical industries. if you can better mobalize, improve the firepower and accuracy of, and sustain for longer and more consistent periods your bombardments, it makes counter-attacks to retake seized trenches harder (since you can lay down a covering curtain while the pointmen get into position and bring in reinforcements) and make it easier to reduce static defenses and obstacles such as barbed wire
The main problem with infantry assault in WW1 was entrenched machine guns, which artillery couldn't destroy, and barbed wire to slow the advance. To destroy the machine gun positions a portable, quick to use, delivery system for explosives is needed with a range of at least 500m. Therefore not hand or rifle grenades.
Perhaps one of the following:
1. a recoilless gun. The 1910 developed Davis gun could be the starting point for a man-portable weapon (probably a team of 4-6)
2, a portable light cannon firing a reasonable HE shell. Something like the 37mm M1916, a few years earlier. Though a larger shell or semi-automatic operation would be desirable.
3. a rocket launcher. Entirely possible with the technology of the day (and earlier). Probably requiring protective gear against the exhaust.
4. a spigot launcher. Something like the PIAT.
Perhaps one of the following:
1. a recoilless gun. The 1910 developed Davis gun could be the starting point for a man-portable weapon (probably a team of 4-6)
2, a portable light cannon firing a reasonable HE shell. Something like the 37mm M1916, a few years earlier. Though a larger shell or semi-automatic operation would be desirable.
3. a rocket launcher. Entirely possible with the technology of the day (and earlier). Probably requiring protective gear against the exhaust.
4. a spigot launcher. Something like the PIAT.
If you move fast enough in the initial phase of war, the entrenched machine gun positions will be few. They can be eliminated with indirect fire, mainly heavy mortars (think about 160mm) and infantry guns which were available prewar, in form of mountain guns.
This scenario would require either strategic surprise, far more rapid advances than historical or a disarray amongst the defenders. A medium type MG could be dug in, beyond the audibility of small arms to dislodge, in half-an-hour at most, leading to either huge losses to take the position (no hand grenades in 1914) or slowing an infantry (or cavalry/dragoon) advance until artillery could be brought up to destroy the position.
I'm not sure how feasible this would be, but what about some sort of ballistic shield? Equipping your front line with them could make advancing on enemy rifle/machine gun positions less suicidal.
Yet in WWII these kind of situations were routinely dealt even without tank support. Fire and movement with indirect fire element. Nothing fancy that can't be achieved in 1914, you have telephones and optics to direct indirect fire. Germans already fielded 7.58cm Leichter Minenwerfer, if doctrine permits it's nothing which cannot be introduced earlier for compan-battalion level support. As for regimental-division level support light guns already had ample range, for example 75mm Modele 1897 already had some 8,5km's. The barriers were ultimately not technological but tactical.
When the same MG's are dug into serious fortifications, the situation becomes more difficutl but creating them requires time.
I don't know if this is possible, any advance in the strength of an attacking force is pretty much applicable to the defence as well, and a man in a hole in the ground isn't an easy target. The only thing I can think of to weaken the defence is for barbed wire to either not be invented or banned under the Hague Conventions. The same could hold true for the invention of the machine gun.
Man in the hole, in field fortifications, is comparatively easy target for indirect fire. You can't create a trench system instantaneously.
Yes it is. The combatants of WWI did not have the indirect fire capabilities and advanced tactics of the late war in 1914 and thus could not dislodge defenders from hastily constructed defensive positions. In 1918 thanks to both indirect fire and advanced tactics this was possible as was demonstrated time and time again from March to November 1918. Well-constructed trench positions were not easy to break through even then, but it was possible to break through even them without tanks, as Germans showed.
The lessons drawn by both the British and Germans post war ww1 was that it is not possible to destroy even hasty positions by indirect fire.
Suppress yes but once the fire lifts the position would be back in use within about 2 minutes.
Suppress yes but once the fire lifts the position would be back in use within about 2 minutes.
Cl
Clarity it’s actually predicted fire. Indirect fire may be to destroy a position, certainly could in ww2 but British practice was to use a single gun so you could recalibrate after every shot. 1914 no one, except possibly coastal and naval types properly understood the information needed to Fire accurately and no one had the means of getting up to date say weather reports to guns. That’s all developed during the war
Clarity it’s actually predicted fire. Indirect fire may be to destroy a position, certainly could in ww2 but British practice was to use a single gun so you could recalibrate after every shot. 1914 no one, except possibly coastal and naval types properly understood the information needed to Fire accurately and no one had the means of getting up to date say weather reports to guns. That’s all developed during the war
Yeah, unfortunately it didn't work historically.
With a LMG or similar, and grenadiers, that could actually work. The problem is the size/mass of the shield and the doctrinal change.
But in 1914 the tactics, doctrine and equipment weren't in use. The Minenwerfer existed in small numbers, but were operated by engineering units rather than infantry. A lighter, direct-fire capable model would be a potent weapon against field fortifications (an example of my second type of weapon).
Light artillery was pretty useless against emplacements, except with massed fire, unless the weapons were able to accompany infantry (the old 'galloper guns' idea) for direct fire. They also required rapid communications between infantry and their divisional artillery detachments.