WORLD WAR 1 WEAPONS

RIFLES

• The standard rifle of the British army during World War I was the Lee-Enfield .303, a variation of a weapon that had been used by the army since 1902.

RIFLES

• It had a magazine that could hold 10 bullets ready to kill anyone within a mile away
• It was a bolt-action and was robust, and reliable. Well suited to the harsh conditions of trench warfare.

RIFLES

• A trained regular soldier could fire 15 rounds per minute with the weapon.
• The Lee-Enfield was so effective that they later on used it during WW2

MACHINE GUNS

MACHINE GUNS

• The machine gun was not a new weapon in 1914. The gun was invented in 1884.
• The gun was made easier to carry during World War I and used to even deadlier effect

MACHINE GUNS

• Germany's standard heavy machine gun, the Maschinengewehr 08, and could fire 400 rounds a minute. The British equivalent was the Vickers machine gun, which could fire between 450-500 bullets a minute.

ARTILLERY

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• The majority of casualties on the battlefields of World War I were inflicted by artillery shelling.
• Artillery barrages were used to “soften up” enemy lines before an infantry assault
• A bombardment of German trenches during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 lasted a fortnight, with 4.5 million shells fired from 3,000 guns.

ATILLARY

• Field guns such as the British Howitzer Mark 1 could fire two rounds of 290lb shells a minute.

ARTILLERY

• March 1918, the Germans began shelling the French capital with their long-range 'Paris Gun'
• Made by Krupps, it had a 118-foot-long barrel and could fire a shell 25 miles into the air, targeting Paris from a site 74 miles away.

POISON GAS

POISON GAS

• Chlorine gas was first used by the Germans at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, killing hundreds of French troops.
• The British also deployed chlorine gas, and later developments in the war included the deadlier phosgene and mustard gas, which blinded those it came in contact with

POISON GAS

• By 1917 poison gas could be delivered with greater precision by chemical shells and mortars, and there were an estimated one million gas casualties on all sides throughout the war.

AIRCRAFT

AIRCRAFT

• When the was started planes were made for wood and canvas. Planes were intended to be used as aerial scouts.
• By November 1914 planes were dropping grenades on enemy troops as they flew over them, or carrying pistols to take pot shots at other aircraft.

PLANES

• This led to the era of dog fights and fighter aces such as the Germans Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron
• The planes called Fokker Eindecker aircraft made them the leading threats in what the British

PLANES

• Britain introduced better fighters such as the SE5 and Sopwith Camel in 1917, and it was the latter which mostly likely claimed the life of the Red Baron when he was shot down in April the following year.

TANKS

TANKS

• Originally called “land battleships”, then “thingum-a-jigs”, tanks were developed on the orders of Winston Churchill and first deployed on the Somme battlefield in September 1916
• Their armour would be impervious to machine gun fire, and their tracks would be able to cross trenches and barbed wire entanglements.

FLAMETHROWERS

FLAMETHROWER

• FLAMETHROWERS were considered by the British to be agains the laws of warfare and portrayed German barbarism.
• By the end of the war both sides had modified Flamethrowers, they were smaller, lighter and more mobile.

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• All these weapons affected the course of the war from 1914-1918