How did trench warfare change the way battles were fought?

Answer 1

Trench warfare was horrible.

the problem was they were using tactics from the days of linear men fighting up close with muskets but using weapons that killed in mass scale now with huge explosive mortars and shells versus the canon ball and musket of the 18th century.

WWI taught many countries that their method of fighting in the open was just plain stupid and insane. it took several years of fighting in WWI before they began to realize this as casualties raised on both sides. Wost more died of trench foot than from the enemy.

This war was the war the changed everything as we fight today, it was the first war to use Aerial combat and bombmings. It used mass machine gun nests, pill boxes, lethal mustard and other gases, Tanks with infrantry at first but then near the end their was finally a battle that was with a mass tank attack by the British and it was very succesful.

SO the world and nations learned that the war books and ways of waging war they had known for centuries had changed drastically during the industrial boom and now you did not wear colorful uniforms to stand out, and you wore the first Dog tags to identify you if you died but they were not as good as they became in WW2.

The only problem with the learning if WWI is that they did not learn well enough. TOO many especially the French felt that fixed fortified positions would defend them against any future war by building the massive Maginot line and then they concentrated their troops along their Norther border near Belgium. Now they wanted to have troops with the BEF but Belgium said no, so they were forced to stay in France and plan a defensive strategy and forgot the hard lesson of WWI and once again the Germans took them by surprise using the Ardennes forest using a modified plan of what was known as the Sclimmen plan. A sicle style attack using fast blitz krieg *lightning war tactics to bypass the French fortifications and taking them easily as the French army stood paralyzed in their fixed positions and with only the help of the BEF they managed to withdraw roughly 250000 troops back to England in the largest retreat of history of the time known to warfare. It really saved them in the future to have these troops available later on.

So that in my eyes is some of the ways trench warfare effected and changed the way battles were fought. No longer did troops charge in mass scale at a nest of machine guns and get mowed down, no longer did they use chemical warfare.

The war taught the world at least they thought it did calling it the War to end all wars because it caused so much death world wide they felt if another never would happen again or it would destroy the world. They were mistaken, it took WW2 before the Atom bomb was built.

It also set the standards for all aerial combat even used today and it was the Red Baron who developed many of them still used by even our air force today.

Hope that helped.

Answer 2

Modern technology ended the time-testing battlefield approach of the massive frontal charge by infantry, and replaced it with the use of concentrated firepower on specific points of a defensive position by variety of new weapons, starting with heavy rifled artillery, and then tanks and airplanes in a close combat support role.

The German strategy of the blitzkrieg represents the first true modern military response to fixed positions. But the blitzkrieg only worked well in open territory. Many aspects of the Allied campaign against the Germans bogged down into trench-like warfare (Italy for instance), which required armor, heavy artillery and airpower to achieve territorial gain.

Many people like to point to World War I as the beginning of modern trench warfare, but several battles in the American Civil War, such as Fredricksburg and Cold Harbor, featured characteristics of trench warfare too, when frontal charges were ordered against fixed positions at terrific cost in human life.

Answer 3

The inability of traditional western military tactics to breach enemy entrenchments (defended by machine guns, and other obstacles) led to the increased use of artillery (to soften up targets), the eventual retirement of horse cavalry (absolutely useless for storming trenches), the invention of chemical weapons (mustard and chlorine gas to breach trenches), and probably most significantly, the creation of the tank (as a trench breaching tool).

Once the tank's full capabilities were realized, its development led the the creation of mechanized warfare doctrines (deep penetration/blitzkrieg, etc) that have dramatically reduced the effectiveness of stationary defenses like the Maginot line or the trench systems seen in WW1.

Answer 4

Trench warfare sucked for the soldiers involved. Everytime the fronline advanced, new trenches had to be dug. You had to wait for a cessation of fire from the enemy and try to charge in without being killed. Problem was, their side was protected with razor wire. It lead to the development and use of other weapons, like mustard gas. Weapons like this (chemical/biological) are now "inappropriate" for battle because of these times.

Answer 5

They made war static because the methods of defence were more effective than the methods of attack. This tended to prolong the conflict.
Modern air warfare overcame this problem together with the use of armoured vehicles

Answer 6

It appeared as if the British generals were insane the way they keept sending wave after wave of infantry into the overwhelming German fire. The tank was created in an effort to gain headway, the name, tank, derived from the code name of their construction, in order to kep the enemy in the dark they said they were building water tanks,

Answer 7

damm this is old asf lol