Weapons of the First World War

It is very easy to kill even the simplest "technology" a stone in the hand can be used for it.

Back to my favourite topic,

Any intelligent person can foresee that at some future time animal-drawn vehicles with an army will disappear. However, to-day, when roads are not good and when from one reason or another certain vehicles supplying troops must pass off these roads into the field, the animal-drawn vehicle still has its advantage and must of necessity be retained

From the THE UNITED STATES FIELD ARTILLERY ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, D. C. of 1917

If the American Army in 1917 thought animal power was still a necessity, we should be looking at it today.

Simon

Are you trying to say, animal-drawn vehicles are still to be considered today for use on our modern battlefields? I don't think anyone would echo that idea. I can think of a hundred reasons why animals would not be a viable means of transportation. I assume you are talking only of horse drawn vehicles. Dogs have and are still being used today, but only as sentry dogs. To begin, horses are too vulunerable to a sniper's bullet. Artillery pieces are much heavier than those found 90 years ago. Horses require handlers, food and care. A horse, even with a wound, cannot be relied on to continue it's course. Today's tracked vehicles can go anywhere and places I horse never could. A tank can crash through a wall. A horse cannot.

War is not any more as it was with a defined battlefield it becomes more complex and mules or horses could have their use as dogs or other animals.

I don't want any living organism on ANY battlefield. I was just pointing out that even the USA in 1917 still thought the horse was vital on the battlefield. And today in the fight against environmental degradation, the horse and pony have a part to play in that fight.

But I repeat, I do not want ANY living organism, human, animal or even vegetable on ANY battlefield.

Simon

Automobiles were still new and some people still thought they would go away like some fad. A lot of people at the time still had yet to even drive an automobile and horses were still a common mode of travel. There were some places that required an automobile operator to dismantle and hide the automobile out of site of a horse and rider, so the horse wouldn't get spooked.

In the early 1920's my grandfather entered the Army Air Corps. He was snatched up right away just because he knew how to work on combustible engines.

Most of the senior Officers in all the Militaries started out in a military where the main mode of travel was by horse or train and old habits are hard to break. Even some of the Generals from WWII were still in the horse and buggie frame of mind.

It was basically the entrance of the United States into that war that inspired Germany to surrender.

It was the reports that American troops were coming off the ships by the thousands that the Germans decided they had enough to finish off the French and British but couldn't hold out against the fresh troops from America.

Finances played a large part too...

Before the United States entered the war France was pretty much finished leaving Britain. Germany felt they had enough resources to win the war against Britain.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin grew from their meager beginnings because of WWI. It is my opinion if WWI did not happen when it did these companies would not have survived. And the US would not have been the airpower it was during WW2 or today.

The following were excerpts from Bauer, Eugene E.; BOEING THE FIRST CENTURY; TABA Publishing, Inc.; Enumclaw, WA; 2000:

• "When the United States entered the war, the country was far down the list of air powers. The Army had 35 pilots, six flying boats, 45 seaplanes, three landplands, seven balloons, and one rigid airship."
• "World War I proved to be the crucible for the airplane manufacturing industry in the United States. American enterprise had performed an awesome task to tool for the war, reaching a plant capacity for producing 21,000 flying machines a year when the war ended."
• "At the time of the Armistice, there were 24 companies, employing almost 200,000 workers. Curtiss predominated, turning out 10,000 airplanes - from the smallest to the largest - and 15,000 engines."
• "The signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918 signalled disaster. Within a few months, approximately 90 percent of the aviation companies had gone out of business."

And the companies that did survive supplied Germany during WWII until the Government was able curtail it. That's one of the primary reasons why we weren't ready to land in Normandy sooner. All the Aluminum companies were part of Cartels set up by IB Farben and so was the Airplane manufacturers. Germany had a monopoly on aluminum, and all the United States companies that were tied into these cartels routed their products through South America to mask their trafficking.

It's because of all these United States companies that were selling to Germany during the war, that the Nazi war criminals were given light sentences and early release that were tried by United States courts.

Ford, General Motors, Beyer, JP Morgan, Prescott Bush, Dulles Brothers, Singer, Standard Oil, Dupont are just a few that are guilty of treason and never brought to justice. Roosevelt intended too but he died and Truman was out of the loop and didn't know anything about what was going on when he took office.