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> The method that actually worked was to get a few boys with rifles up on the parapet and have them shoot down into the trenches, killing everyone they could. F

> The method that actually worked was to get a few boys with rifles up on the parapet and have them shoot down into the trenches, killing everyone they could. Faster, more efficient, and no silly buggers with grenades flying back and forth. The American's brought shotguns ("trench guns") to do that work. It was seen by the Germans as violation of the law of war. "On 19 September 1918, the German government issued a diplomatic protest against the American use of shotguns, alleging that the shotgun was prohibited by the law of war." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Model_1897 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Model_1897

JackFr 5y ago
The Thompson submachine gun also picked up the nickname “trench broom”.
- philwelch 5y ago
  Though the war ended before the Thompson was in production, this was absolutely the intended use. Similar to the BAR, it would later see service in a world war much different than the one it was designed for.
hutzlibu 5y ago
The hypocrysis of the german government/army of that time, is staggering. They were the the ones, who introduced chemical weapons, poison gas, to the battlefield - and then cried about shotguns?! Oh and later, when the war was lost, it was of course the fault of the communist and socialdemocrats, who stabbed the army in the back and not of the glorious, heroic army. And there are still lots of people glorifying the Kaiserreich. I am glad its gone.
- Bost 5y ago
  > The hypocrysis of the german government/army of that time, is staggering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I#1914:_Tear_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_... All sides started to develop these weapons before the war, and apparently it's the Germans who were capable of deploying these weapons sooner and with greater success. What you present here nothing less than a one-sided propaganda. It reminds of French villages hundreds of kilometers far from any WWI front line, deep in the rear with memorials dedicated to "Innocent children fallen in the great war" followed by a list of some 10 to 15 male names. Innocent children, the throat cutter sort, same as those from the other side.
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    Is it fair to call the ones who were declared war on "throat cutters"? Especially since they almost certainly didn't want to be there anyway.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  I think the French were first.
- meinersbur 5y ago
  They were not the ones who introduces gas warfare into WW1. It was the French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHFEPu_ANI&t=80s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHFEPu_ANI&t=80s The Hague Convention of 1899 banned chemical warfare, with the US being the only ones to not have signed it. Doesn't mean that the Germans weren't hypocrits, the complains about shotguns might have been rooted in wanting to point fingers back: https://youtu.be/fvrIVZn1jH8 https://youtu.be/fvrIVZn1jH8
  - greesil 5y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_Wa... The French used tear gas first, the Germans were the first to use chlorine. There's a big difference between these gasses.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      Yes, you cannot really compare tear gas with chlorine. One gives you trouble breathing and is used widely against civilian demonstrants, because it is very mild - the other one - the one the german army was first to use - kills or cripples your loungs in a horrible way. But I rather leave this debate. P.s. I tasted some tear gas, it is certainly not nice. But thats it. It doesn't actually harm you, unless you have a precondition. Chlorine on the other hand is just pure deadly poison
      - greesil 5y ago
        I mean, it was war. Conventions are nice, but my read on both world wars nobody actually cared, they just practiced tit for tat. The comment I was responding to made what I interpreted as a false equivalence.
  - lainga 5y ago
    Same with flechettes, to which end they were stamped with "INVENTION FRANCAIS, FABRICATION ALLEMAND" ("Invented in France, made in Germany").
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  You have a,very distorted knowledge of WW1 and the post war years in Germany.
  - marton78 5y ago
    Care to elaborate?
spywaregorilla 5y ago
Don't you need to get to the enemy trench to use those? Isn't preventing that the whole point of trenches?
- zelos 5y ago
  If you get enough men to walk slowly towards a trench protected by machine guns, eventually some of them will get close enough to use a shotgun. (Actually, trench warfare by later WWI had developed significantly since the early war, it wasn't just sitting in trenches or sending mindless waves of troops over the top)
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  You would suppress the trench using fire support, so that they have their heads down and not able to fire back, allowing you to approach it.
- jccooper 5y ago
  Attacks would commonly get to the first line or two of trenches; the trick was keeping them, given counterattacks. There were many lines of trenches still in front.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Shotguns where more for trench raiding along with improvised clubs etc
- grugq 5y ago
  There was two years of war before the British had figured out how to do trench raiding effectively. By late 1916 they had the “storm trooper” tactics completely figured out, something the Germans wouldn’t manage until 1918. The Germans on the other hand, developed very good defense in depth tactics. A trench system is made of three lines of trenches in parallel, covering a mile or more in depth. The front line trench is the combat trench, where the fighting is supposed to take place. Then there is the support trench, which houses units for work parties and counterattacks and so on. Then the reserve trench which houses more work parties and has units resting from front line duty. Units would spent a week or two in the trenches, then rotate into the rear for a while to rest and receive replacements. As the war progressed everyone basically learned that the front line trench was rubbish. It would be destroyed, overrun, shot up, etc. There was no point in holding it with a lot of troops because they’d get wiped out before they could do much of anything. The Germans switched to a front line that was just fortified shell holes with machine guns. This was very safe against artillery because there was no trench to target. It was effective against infantry attacks because the machine guns could wreak havoc on men with rifles. The support and reserve trenches would be real trenches. This system of fortified shell holes with supporting strong points from the support trench was “defense in depth.” The opposition could “overrun” the front line, but they’d still have pockets of machine gun nests on their flanks and behind them. Eliminating every single machine gun nest was extremely slow and so… that is how defense was achieved. Not with a single strong trench, but with a system that could absorb an attack, slow it down, and reduce it with machine guns. [anecdote: during an offensive one officer solved the “eliminate all the machine gun nests” problem by taking a German prisoner and making him stand up on a stump in no mans land pointing out every nest. The officer would prod him with his pistol and demand more information, until all the machine guns were located and neutralized. Only then was the poor German allowed to get off the elevated and exposed position.] The offensive solution to this system was with artillery box barrages, storm trooper infiltration, and tanks (to some degree). The real solution was to spend years besieging Germany and bleeding her dry so that by late 1918 there was no manpower, materiel or morale to fight. Attrition wins. Infiltration tactics were basically sending small units of men, say a section (8 men) or platoon (40 men) through the fortified shell hole system at night. That way when the attack began, the men were miles inside enemy territory already and could ambush the strong points, etc. This was what the British began doing by late 1916. Germany gets credit for inventing it almost two years later because, they had a really cool name (storm troopers!) and the enemy always has cooler better stuff than you do. And the British didn’t like a system that gave all the initiative to young officers, particularly the officers later in the war who came from civilian life to fight only for the duration, can’t have those types ruining things for the career officers from good families, etc. etc, The trench raid was the primary way of defeating the trench system. It begins with a creeping barrage and the box barrage. The artillery fires on the front line trenches until the time when the infantry assault elements are supposed to arrive. Then it lifts and moves to targets further back. It stays on those until the time when the infantry is supposed to arrive then, and then lifts and moves forward again. Creeping barrage. The box baggage was where the artillery fences the area being assaulted with fire along the flanks. This produces a sort of box, where artillery is firing along two sides and one creeping barrage at the back. The idea is that the area within the box will be dealt with by the infantry assault units while the artillery prevents reinforcements and counterattacks. It is a brittle system because there is so little information flow between the front line assault units and the artillery. If the times scheduled for the advances don’t match with reality the infantry can fall behind the protective screen. When this happens, I.e. the creeping barrage walks too far forward for the infantry to keep up, then the enemy can come up from their dugouts and man their defensive positions. This is, obviously, very bad for the Poor Bloody Infantry. Anyway, the short answer is that trenches were attacked all the time and clearing trenches was an important activity. There were night raids as well, which is a whole other thing. That’s where the hand to hand fighting comes into it. That’s an entire other subject, including how the armies had to invent modern hand to hand combat training. These days if you’re in the military you’re taught basically two technica, one to incapacitate and one to kill. Then everything else you learn is a way to setup either of those two techniques. Guy standing up? Ok, get him on the ground and crush his throat. Guy has a knife? Get him on the ground, safely, and crush his throat. Guy has a bayonet? Get him on… and so on. The French system was based on crushing the throat. With thumbs. Very… brutal. I’m not sure how much it was used, but that is what was taught,
pixodaros 5y ago
The obstacle to that method was that someone had to go over the top, cross several yards of ground, and then look down into the next straight section of trench. If there was someone waiting with a MG or a rifle, Mr. Brave got shot and then everyone had a casualty in the open to deal with plus Jerry around the corner.

JackFr 5y ago

The Thompson submachine gun also picked up the nickname “trench broom”.

philwelch 5y ago
Though the war ended before the Thompson was in production, this was absolutely the intended use. Similar to the BAR, it would later see service in a world war much different than the one it was designed for.

hutzlibu 5y ago

The hypocrysis of the german government/army of that time, is staggering. They were the the ones, who introduced chemical weapons, poison gas, to the battlefield - and then cried about shotguns?! Oh and later, when the war was lost, it was of course the fault of the communist and socialdemocrats, who stabbed the army in the back and not of the glorious, heroic army. And there are still lots of people glorifying the Kaiserreich. I am glad its gone.

Bost 5y ago
> The hypocrysis of the german government/army of that time, is staggering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I#1914:_Tear_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_... All sides started to develop these weapons before the war, and apparently it's the Germans who were capable of deploying these weapons sooner and with greater success. What you present here nothing less than a one-sided propaganda. It reminds of French villages hundreds of kilometers far from any WWI front line, deep in the rear with memorials dedicated to "Innocent children fallen in the great war" followed by a list of some 10 to 15 male names. Innocent children, the throat cutter sort, same as those from the other side.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  Is it fair to call the ones who were declared war on "throat cutters"? Especially since they almost certainly didn't want to be there anyway.
kingsuper20 5y ago
I think the French were first.
meinersbur 5y ago
They were not the ones who introduces gas warfare into WW1. It was the French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHFEPu_ANI&t=80s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHFEPu_ANI&t=80s The Hague Convention of 1899 banned chemical warfare, with the US being the only ones to not have signed it. Doesn't mean that the Germans weren't hypocrits, the complains about shotguns might have been rooted in wanting to point fingers back: https://youtu.be/fvrIVZn1jH8 https://youtu.be/fvrIVZn1jH8
- greesil 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_Wa... The French used tear gas first, the Germans were the first to use chlorine. There's a big difference between these gasses.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    Yes, you cannot really compare tear gas with chlorine. One gives you trouble breathing and is used widely against civilian demonstrants, because it is very mild - the other one - the one the german army was first to use - kills or cripples your loungs in a horrible way. But I rather leave this debate. P.s. I tasted some tear gas, it is certainly not nice. But thats it. It doesn't actually harm you, unless you have a precondition. Chlorine on the other hand is just pure deadly poison
    - greesil 5y ago
      I mean, it was war. Conventions are nice, but my read on both world wars nobody actually cared, they just practiced tit for tat. The comment I was responding to made what I interpreted as a false equivalence.
- lainga 5y ago
  Same with flechettes, to which end they were stamped with "INVENTION FRANCAIS, FABRICATION ALLEMAND" ("Invented in France, made in Germany").
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
You have a,very distorted knowledge of WW1 and the post war years in Germany.
- marton78 5y ago
  Care to elaborate?

spywaregorilla 5y ago

Don't you need to get to the enemy trench to use those? Isn't preventing that the whole point of trenches?

zelos 5y ago
If you get enough men to walk slowly towards a trench protected by machine guns, eventually some of them will get close enough to use a shotgun. (Actually, trench warfare by later WWI had developed significantly since the early war, it wasn't just sitting in trenches or sending mindless waves of troops over the top)
chrisseaton 5y ago
You would suppress the trench using fire support, so that they have their heads down and not able to fire back, allowing you to approach it.
jccooper 5y ago
Attacks would commonly get to the first line or two of trenches; the trick was keeping them, given counterattacks. There were many lines of trenches still in front.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Mauricebranagh 5y ago
Shotguns where more for trench raiding along with improvised clubs etc
grugq 5y ago
There was two years of war before the British had figured out how to do trench raiding effectively. By late 1916 they had the “storm trooper” tactics completely figured out, something the Germans wouldn’t manage until 1918. The Germans on the other hand, developed very good defense in depth tactics. A trench system is made of three lines of trenches in parallel, covering a mile or more in depth. The front line trench is the combat trench, where the fighting is supposed to take place. Then there is the support trench, which houses units for work parties and counterattacks and so on. Then the reserve trench which houses more work parties and has units resting from front line duty. Units would spent a week or two in the trenches, then rotate into the rear for a while to rest and receive replacements. As the war progressed everyone basically learned that the front line trench was rubbish. It would be destroyed, overrun, shot up, etc. There was no point in holding it with a lot of troops because they’d get wiped out before they could do much of anything. The Germans switched to a front line that was just fortified shell holes with machine guns. This was very safe against artillery because there was no trench to target. It was effective against infantry attacks because the machine guns could wreak havoc on men with rifles. The support and reserve trenches would be real trenches. This system of fortified shell holes with supporting strong points from the support trench was “defense in depth.” The opposition could “overrun” the front line, but they’d still have pockets of machine gun nests on their flanks and behind them. Eliminating every single machine gun nest was extremely slow and so… that is how defense was achieved. Not with a single strong trench, but with a system that could absorb an attack, slow it down, and reduce it with machine guns. [anecdote: during an offensive one officer solved the “eliminate all the machine gun nests” problem by taking a German prisoner and making him stand up on a stump in no mans land pointing out every nest. The officer would prod him with his pistol and demand more information, until all the machine guns were located and neutralized. Only then was the poor German allowed to get off the elevated and exposed position.] The offensive solution to this system was with artillery box barrages, storm trooper infiltration, and tanks (to some degree). The real solution was to spend years besieging Germany and bleeding her dry so that by late 1918 there was no manpower, materiel or morale to fight. Attrition wins. Infiltration tactics were basically sending small units of men, say a section (8 men) or platoon (40 men) through the fortified shell hole system at night. That way when the attack began, the men were miles inside enemy territory already and could ambush the strong points, etc. This was what the British began doing by late 1916. Germany gets credit for inventing it almost two years later because, they had a really cool name (storm troopers!) and the enemy always has cooler better stuff than you do. And the British didn’t like a system that gave all the initiative to young officers, particularly the officers later in the war who came from civilian life to fight only for the duration, can’t have those types ruining things for the career officers from good families, etc. etc, The trench raid was the primary way of defeating the trench system. It begins with a creeping barrage and the box barrage. The artillery fires on the front line trenches until the time when the infantry assault elements are supposed to arrive. Then it lifts and moves to targets further back. It stays on those until the time when the infantry is supposed to arrive then, and then lifts and moves forward again. Creeping barrage. The box baggage was where the artillery fences the area being assaulted with fire along the flanks. This produces a sort of box, where artillery is firing along two sides and one creeping barrage at the back. The idea is that the area within the box will be dealt with by the infantry assault units while the artillery prevents reinforcements and counterattacks. It is a brittle system because there is so little information flow between the front line assault units and the artillery. If the times scheduled for the advances don’t match with reality the infantry can fall behind the protective screen. When this happens, I.e. the creeping barrage walks too far forward for the infantry to keep up, then the enemy can come up from their dugouts and man their defensive positions. This is, obviously, very bad for the Poor Bloody Infantry. Anyway, the short answer is that trenches were attacked all the time and clearing trenches was an important activity. There were night raids as well, which is a whole other thing. That’s where the hand to hand fighting comes into it. That’s an entire other subject, including how the armies had to invent modern hand to hand combat training. These days if you’re in the military you’re taught basically two technica, one to incapacitate and one to kill. Then everything else you learn is a way to setup either of those two techniques. Guy standing up? Ok, get him on the ground and crush his throat. Guy has a knife? Get him on the ground, safely, and crush his throat. Guy has a bayonet? Get him on… and so on. The French system was based on crushing the throat. With thumbs. Very… brutal. I’m not sure how much it was used, but that is what was taught,

pixodaros 5y ago

The obstacle to that method was that someone had to go over the top, cross several yards of ground, and then look down into the next straight section of trench. If there was someone waiting with a MG or a rifle, Mr. Brave got shot and then everyone had a casualty in the open to deal with plus Jerry around the corner.