Ok I just finished doing WW1 in school. I like reading about that war which is now my favorite war. My question is what is the smartest way to attack a trench with the technology that existed. I mean today it would be pretty easy to bomb a trench to peices and a modern tank would be good at storming trenches. So what should the generals of WW1 have done?

Chlorine or Mustard Gas: Used first in the second battle of Ypres to tremendous efficiency. Had the Germans accurately predicted the effectiveness of the strike, they could have easily taken the Ypres salient. In my opinion, this is by far the most effective (albeit very unethical for the innocent murdered civilians) method with which to attack a trench defense.

Other than that, I don't see any effective offensive manoever other than simply outnumbering your opponent and striking at night. Trenches had such effective defensive capacities that they were the quintessential strategy; so much so that it had an era of combat named after it.

Use a creeping artillery barrge to lay down a curtain of explosions in front to steadily advancing troops. Attack using planes to hit points in the trench lines, as well as tanks and such to overrun position. Such attacks call for great presecion and timing. A good strategy would be to us Stormtroopers to infilitrate the trenches causing chaos behind enemy lines.

The best way?
Attack your enemy when they don't expect it.
The Germans made some startling gains by merely walking over in daylight, without any artillery help.

Trench warfare in WW1 on the Western Front was a static business. In order to make an attack worthwhile, there needs to be a breakthrough. This needs the aforementioned combined arms warfare - heavy artillery continual suppressing fire against enemy artillery positions,communications and transport; medium howitzers and guns providing a creeping barrage, and field guns close up. Utilize tanks in significant numbers, in combination with enough fast moving sturmtruppen and large amounts of conventional infantry.
Utilize air support, particularly in regards to reconnaissance. Open up a breach and exploit it with the cavalry and reserves.

All these came together, along with the necessary command mindset and spirit of aggression, in 1918 for the Allies. Until then, the lessons still need to be digested, the technology advanced, and the manpower mustered. Millions of Yanks help a bit.

when you hear the whistle... pray to God and climb over the top!

From an infantry man's POV what you do remains pretty much the same as back in 1914. You get stuck in at some weak spot in the system, the you enlarge the section you control by bombing yourself along with handgranades and through close combat. All armies involved more or less independantly invented these tactics after 1914. It's the kind of warfare that the submachinegun was invented for.
What you don't do is rush the trench in a massive bayonet charge shouting hurrah! and expect to take the whole damn thing in one go. Surprisingly enough that was how a lot of senior commanders figured things in 1914.;)

Surprise is best, but if that cannot be managed, soften them up with heavy shelling and poison gas. Then have your army charge over the top. Even with the enemy weakened, expect heavy casualties(make that very heavy casualties), once your army makes it to the other side(if any make it over at all), the fighting will be at close quarters and be a mixture of short range weapons and hand to hand fighting. Trench warfare is very much a war of attrition. The side that can afford the worst casualties and has the most patience is the side that will win.

1. This is World War I, what innocent civilians??? anyone in the combat zone, ie. within artillery range of the other side, had better be under cover and out of sight. Both sides moved civilians out of the way if the civilians were dumb enough to stay near the front.

2. posion gas didn't work so good. Yes, it was really nasty stuff, but very unreliable. Like if the wind changes, oops, it blows back in your face. Or, counterbattery fire blows up your stockpile of shells and the gas floods your own lines. In practice, it was as dangerous to the attacker as to the defender. Which is why it was never used in World War II. Both sides felt it was not worth the hassle. Althrough both sides had stockpiles of it so that they could retaliate in case the other side did use it.

TBH, I was always kind of surprised they didn't try tunnelling into the enemy trench, ala the Medieval period. What with all the shelling, you wouldn't be able to hear the digging, and you would probably be able to surprise the enemy pretty good.

Entrenchment triggered a complex and difficult to trace series of evolutions in both battlefield tactics and technology. The Germans responded by creating what amounted to modern combined arms squad tactics, something their French and British opponents initially brushed off as infiltration tactics. After a long period of grim failure, the British managed the mass deployment of a new weapon called the tank, which also changed the nature of warfare and helped break the brutal deadlock of position warfare. The French adopted both of these methods and weapons, applying them is a combined form which appealed to the French leadership.

TBH, I was always kind of surprised they didn't try tunnelling into the enemy trench, ala the Medieval period. What with all the shelling, you wouldn't be able to hear the digging, and you would probably be able to surprise the enemy pretty good.

They did mine the trenches with explosives at Messines (sp?).

Send the bombers first, then the tanks.

Hold your trench lines, and just keeping shelling the enemy. No need to make worthless charges at the enemy, let them do it and waste their soldiers

Also digging under the enemy trenches and firing poison gas helps quite a bit

TBH, I was always kind of surprised they didn't try tunnelling into the enemy trench, ala the Medieval period. What with all the shelling, you wouldn't be able to hear the digging, and you would probably be able to surprise the enemy pretty good.
Semi-OT but it was also tried in the US Civil War at the Siege of Petersburg. Union soldiers mined under a fort on the Confederate lines and set a huge charge of power beneath it. Unfortunately after the (quite spectacular) explosion, the Union troops poured into the crater rather than moving around it.... so they basically pinned themselves in for slaughter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Crater

Heavy artilery can help attacking a trench, but if the trench system is well-built, the artilery is almost useless.

Watch Band of Brothers

Im thinking that napalm or any incendiary device would do nicely. deliver it via a heavy artillery shell, the liquid fire would hopefully drip down into the trench and roast the enemy.

Hold your trench lines, and just keeping shelling the enemy. No need to make worthless charges at the enemy, let them do it and waste their soldiers
That's Pétain's recipy from 1917. Mechanised warfare, massive fire power and as little exposure of your own troops as possible means static warfare with relatively low attrition. Unfortunately it's not enought to make the enemy evacuate your territory, if that's what he's dug himself into.

Blockade the other sides ports and wait for the hunger to make them surrender.

Napalm was only developed in the Second installment.

Blockading and waiting for capitulation is a very lengthy process, and is not of war winning utility without victory on the battlefield exacerbating matters.

what is the smartest way to attack a trench with the technology that existed. So what should the generals of WW1 have done?

Ideally:
Air superiority which allows spotters: Then systematicly take out enemy artillary positions.
Heavy artillary in short accurate bombardment.
Rolling barrage
Infantry to trench as close as possible for short jump off.
Equiped with flame throwers, lots of hand grenades and light machine guns
Short limited objectives.

Ideally:
Air superiority which allows spotters: Then systematicly take out enemy artillary positions.
Heavy artillary in short accurate bombardment.
Rolling barrage
Infantry to trench as close as possible for short jump off.
Equiped with flame throwers, lots of hand grenades and light machine guns
Short limited objectives.
All of which was invented and used as intended in WWI. And in the end tanks worked better anyway.

Ok I just finished doing WW1 in school. I like reading about that war which is now my favorite war. My question is what is the smartest way to attack a trench with the technology that existed. I mean today it would be pretty easy to bomb a trench to peices and a modern tank would be good at storming trenches. So what should the generals of WW1 have done?


Gases grenades, shell it shoot at it, then when it looks weak enough you pool men from one of your set-ins and raid it, if you take the set-ins it becomes a domino effect and you take over all the set-ins and take the trench as a whole. Onthe second hand if the raid fails, one of your set-ins is now vulnerable for counterattack. Becuase of the domino effect of taking a single set-in later in the war they began making multiple trenches so if you lost one the battle wasnt completely lost.

And i dont mean to sound like an arse but FF theres no point in taking out there arty, they wont shell there own trench and it wasnt accurate enough anyway.

Gases grenades, shell it shoot at it, then when it looks weak enough you pool men from one of your set-ins and raid it, if you take the set-ins it becomes a domino effect and you take over all the set-ins and take the trench as a whole. Onthe second hand if the raid fails, one of your set-ins is now vulnerable for counterattack. Becuase of the domino effect of taking a single set-in later in the war they began making multiple trenches so if you lost one the battle wasnt completely lost.
Actually the biggest problem with WWI trench warfare seems to have been not taking the damn things (not that it's actually easy), put stopping the counter-offensive you invariably got hit by. That's the real poser here. How to hang on to whatever gains you made?

Fire, and lot's of it. Whether it's machine guns you somehow moved over the quagmire, artillery fire, incindiaries, some sort of cluster munition dropped from the sky, or just lighting fires between your gains and the enemy line. :p

In March 1918, the Germans delivered an attack against the British 5th Army called Operation Michael. The Germans realized that the tactics used by both sides on the Western Front were inadequate, and devised new tactics. They split their forces into two types of units, trench divisions for defense and Stosstruppen (storm troops) divisions for offense. These Stosstruppen were the best men culled from all divisions (leaving the rest for trench divisions) and extensively trained.

The tactics, which were refined into the Blitzkrieg of WW2, consisted of:

Aufmarsch - rapid movement to the enemy's front, generally by train and motor transport.

Gefeschsstreifen - concentration against a narrow sector of the enemy's front, then

Schwerpunkt - center of gravity for the attack, to be made with great force but with a short artillery bombardment (unlike the literally days of bombardment previously used).

Einbruch - penetration of the enemy front which, if successful, would be followed up by additional forces in order to achieve

Durchburch - breakthrough, permitting the troops access to the enemy's rear, where they could employ

Falchen und Lüketaktick - the tactics of space and gap, avoiding the enemy's reserves and strong points as much as possible, hitting them where they were least able to defend, in order to press on and secure control of enemy lines of communication, while other troops undertook the

Aufrollen - rolling up of the tattered ends of the pierced enemy front, mopping up strong points and widening the gap that additional forces could move up to support the advancing spearheads in attaining

Keil und Kessel - literally "wedge and pocket," the encirclement of the enemy.

Operation Michael succeeded until the Aufrollen stage, when the British 2nd Army to the north and the French 1st and 3rd Armies to the south were able to threaten the German flanks and Allied reserve troops deployed in a new front line. Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht advanced as much as 30 miles beyond the original front line before it was obvious that the attack had failed.

For more information, I recommend:
J. H. Johnson, 1918: The Unexpected Victory. London: Cassell & Co., 1997.
John Keegan, The First World War. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
Correlli Barnett, Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War. New York: William Marrow & Co., 1964 (specifically the section on Ludendorff).

well if it were me I would SPEND millions into the development of nuclear weapons...

but aside from that what I would do is...have the artillery clear way in the no mans land because there are mines and booby traps and snipers in that area...Now with the no mans land completely pot holled even more this will allow my troops a fall back position so they can eventually make a good hold and retreat if needed...

Now with the clearing of the No mans land I take the artillery and shell the enemy lines RELENTLESSLY...and send up a scout party to prod at the enemy lines to see how there reaction is....while that is happeneing I will send out Smoke bombs tons of them to cover the scout team....and scout planes to scout the entire area...and I mean a whole lot of scout planes making notes of enemy positions......While the scout team is being attacked they are to take Dynamite and clear the barbed wire that lay between no mans land and their trenches....after that scout team got back or what was left... I would shell the area that has the huge hole in the barbed wire.

After that I send in the first wave of light infantry backed with artillery fire BEHIND enemy lines that way to supress enemy re-enforcements...The job of the first wave is to breech or make a bigger hole so the second wave may follow in behind to help with the breeching of enemy lines...The third wave will then follow behind the second wave replacing the first...The first wave is then to fall back into the main lines incase...

The 4th wave will have what tanks possible and airplanes flying in to scout enemy positions a second time. If all fails

RUUN AWAY!!!

Any questions or remarks are welcome...as long as you provide a helpful suggestion..

well if it were me I would SPEND millions into the development of nuclear weapons...If it were me I would spend millions into the development of bombers and tanks. In 1914, they weren't that far from having enough technology to devellop those, it seems that military strategists didn't believe enough in them.

People will need another decade to understand the good old days of small soldiers running in the middle of the battlefield were over. And even then, French and Russians continued with that foolish ideology.

Yes but the question is how would you make a break out in trench warfare with the tech they had at the time...and that means those bullet magnet tanks...

Fire, and lot's of it. Whether it's machine guns you somehow moved over the quagmire, artillery fire, incindiaries, some sort of cluster munition dropped from the sky, or just lighting fires between your gains and the enemy line. :p
dear God, why didnt they think of that in 1916? Can you imagine a Fokker Triplane dropping firebombs on French trenches? that would be crazy! Its too bad neither side learned the value of close air support in that war

best way to attack a trench?: i like the way one of the russian generals did it, moved a mass amount of troops to the front so the germans didnt notice and then just attacked without any bombardment, the total surpise won it i think

smartest way to attack a trench?: dont you'll get your ass handed to you :p

dear God, why didnt they think of that in 1916? Can you imagine a Fokker Triplane dropping firebombs on French trenches? that would be crazy! Its too bad neither side learned the value of close air support in that war
Except the German planes rarely operated over the French or British lines. Had they tried they would have been outnumbered and punished for it.

and I dont know why on earth generals didn't use aircraft in ground support by straffing...atleast act as forward lookers for god sake

EDIT: Slash and burn tactics is also what I would use if I retreated...much like the russians did in WWII

Flying a world war I biplane, made of wood and canvas, low and slow over trenches packed with infantry is not going to have a very high survival rate, and if you do manage to crash land safely on the wrong side of the lines, said infantry who just received your firebombs are not going to treat you with kid gloves.

There's the further point that WWI biplanes didn't have a large carrying capacity. The Handley Page 0/400 bomber (http://home.earthlink.net/~scottbeth/Redbaron/planes/handley.htm), the largest operated during the war* could carry one 1650 lb (748kg) bomb. Artillery was much more cost effective in putting large amounts of explosive on the enemy lines.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/exhibitions/not-quite-extinct/images/PC74-1-222.jpg

*The HP 0/500 and Vickers Vimy didn't come into service until after the war was over.

Well with the way WW1 was fought I would have to agree. Pray once you go over the top.

Now in a real world situation, try and hit the sides or weakpoints and get in the damn trench yourself. Automatic weapons are great with shotguns for cleaning out a trench or bunker. Lots of frags, taking it slow and smooth. You do this at several points in a trenchline, put in a squad or fireteam, you will own that trench.

YNCS, the Zeppelin Staaken was bigger.

Adler

You're right, Adler. My mistake.

Well with the way WW1 was fought I would have to agree. Pray once you go over the top.

Now in a real world situation, try and hit the sides or weakpoints and get in the damn trench yourself. Automatic weapons are great with shotguns for cleaning out a trench or bunker. Lots of frags, taking it slow and smooth. You do this at several points in a trenchline, put in a squad or fireteam, you will own that trench.
Are you saying that WW1 trench warfare wasn't "real world?" There were several million Germans, British, French, Canadians, Australians, Italians, Portuguese, Indians, and miscellaneous other veterans who might have disagreed with that.

Are you saying that WW1 trench warfare wasn't "real world?" There were several million Germans, British, French, Canadians, Australians, Italians, Portuguese, Indians, and miscellaneous other veterans who might have disagreed with that.
i think he means that if he were to encounter a trench warfare situation tomorrow, this is the way he would do it. "real world" referring to the here and now, not separating it from the fictional.

well thats easy to beat...just use fast moving vehicles, grenades, and anti-personel bombs (cluster bombs)

3 words, if today, fuel air explosives. and back then? well i like the close air support, but the planes were just too vulnerable.And they would still be supporting some poor sob's going over the top. So thats how I would do it.

Ok I just finished doing WW1 in school. I like reading about that war which is now my favorite war. My question is what is the smartest way to attack a trench with the technology that existed. I mean today it would be pretty easy to bomb a trench to peices and a modern tank would be good at storming trenches. So what should the generals of WW1 have done?
How can such a slaughter be someone's favourite war?

1, bomb the trench just befor the atack with arty.
2, even closer to the moment of atack, use posion gas
3, dont use just typical infantry, use storm troopers allso. armed with smgs and flame throwers.
4, use bombers and recon planes to try to spot enamy arty and destroy it.

How can such a slaughter be someone's favourite war?


It can be for people who haven't experienced it.

Gets lots of poor people (preferably australians) too young to understand whats going on, give them guns without bullets (not going to get a chance to shot them anyway) and have them charge the enemy trenchs until the enemy run out of bullets.

Gets lots of poor people (preferably australians) too young to understand whats going on, give them guns with bullets (not going to get a chance to shot them anyway) and have them charge the enemy trenchs until the enemy run out of bullets.
Why give them bullets if they won't use it anyway?

How can such a slaughter be someone's favourite war?

I would presume (hope) that it means it is his favourite war to study.

From my understanding of the subject:

1. Surprise - don't telegraph your intentions by weeks of bombardment, nor weak communications, or obvious buildup. Far easier for the Germans given they usually held the ridges with the Allies coming to them to push them out. Cool surprises definitely included setting off mines below enemy positions, attacks after hurricane bombardments and of course...tanks.

2. Close proximity of reinforcements to exploit any gaps. Far too often gaps would be formed in the lines but reserve units were too far back to make use of, or too far forward and got caught up in the confusion of the initial attack.

3. Most attacks that succeeded happened on mornings that were misty - reasonably common in the early morning in Northern Belgium and France. If it ain't a misty morning, call your attack off.

Well since the trenches are so confined I figure get some troops at one point and use a kind of shield to deflect bullets to sweep through.

Well since the trenches are so confined I figure get some troops at one point and use a kind of shield to deflect bullets to sweep through.

It should be the lucky day of the enemy artilery ;)

Chlorine or Mustard Gas: Used first in the second battle of Ypres to tremendous efficiency. Had the Germans accurately predicted the effectiveness of the strike, they could have easily taken the Ypres salient. In my opinion, this is by far the most effective (albeit very unethical for the innocent murdered civilians) method with which to attack a trench defense.

Other than that, I don't see any effective offensive manoever other than simply outnumbering your opponent and striking at night. Trenches had such effective defensive capacities that they were the quintessential strategy; so much so that it had an era of combat named after it.

at the time it had little effect as wind makes using gasses as a weapon very difficult...and unreliable

by the way the chemical gas used did not kill large amounts of soldiers

if you outnumber opponents then a machine gun nest will still be able to mow infantry and cavalry down

trench warfare became obsolete when WWI tanks were used on the offensive

the machine gun can't penetrate the armor...or most weapons at the time

(1) Dig a deep tunnel under the trenches and emerge on the other side

(2) Prepare massive fire hoses, fill the trenches with water and dump jello on them. Give the jello time to set, then attack.

Seriously, study the tactics Brusilov used at the beginning of his Offensive, which the German-Austrian army used at Caporetto.

Or the best strategy: Attack so fast the enemy doesn't have time to dig in.

Use artillery and air power against command nodes and then attack at night.

This requires very well trained troops, but was quite effective in the Falklands.

Chemical Warfare in the Trench, Artillery Bombardments behind the trench, and infantry shooting at the trench. There'd be no way to get out.

Chemical Warfare in the Trench, Artillery Bombardments behind the trench, and infantry shooting at the trench. There'd be no way to get out.

I read the memories of some British soldiers. They were saying how they had to leave a trench which they have captured, becasue of the chemical warfare
they had used before the attack ;)

Also the wind may change and nobody where the gas will go.
I think that the chemical warfare in ww1 was too unreliable.

Actually how do you see a charging infantry shooting at the trench
':confused:



I think that one if the things which helped when attacking a trench, were the grenades.

Well since the trenches are so confined I figure get some troops at one point and use a kind of shield to deflect bullets to sweep through.

Trenches were zig-zagged so bullets didn't travel far and tended not to deflect around corners much anyway. The big problem in a trench is the grenade. You forgot that all the other side has to do it throw a grenade past your shield and the shield will actually protect the guy who threw the grenade at you. :cry:

Realistically, big metal plates that are thick enough to deflect bullets are too heavy to hold by a person or people. There was no lightweight kevlar or polycarbonate equivalent at the time that could reliably deflect bullets. Metal helmets had to be light and thin enough to wear, and really only protected against shrapnel, which was a bigger threat in most cases. Remember, people stopped wearing full-body armor plating when the gun first spread through Europe. The most you could really carry long distances was that steel breastplate insert. The movie Blackhawk Down made an interesting plot twist out of it.

Ok I just finished doing WW1 in school. I like reading about that war which is now my favorite war. My question is what is the smartest way to attack a trench with the technology that existed. I mean today it would be pretty easy to bomb a trench to peices and a modern tank would be good at storming trenches. So what should the generals of WW1 have done?

Actually, today it would NOT be easy to bomb a trench to pieces - in fact a trench system similar to the late war Western Front systems is perhaps the single target which is MOSt resilient against aerial attack; troops still construct dugouts and such today, and the deep shelters constructed by the Germans in particular would be on a par with the deepest modern command bunker type targets, and extremely difficult to locate, hit or destroy.

Again, a modern tank would not be as useful as you may think; it's got to get across the trenches, not a trivial task, and avoid the infantry taking it out with any of a variety of short-ranged anti-tank weapons.

What they should have done is precisely what they DID do - they spent 4 years working out the best ways to attack (and defend) a trench system, the idea that there was a "better way" with the existing technology is laughable. And the various battles in the last year of the war show that all the armies had essentially solved the question of how to break into a trench system, whether Cambrai, 'Michael', or August 8th is the example you prefer. What NO ARMY SOLVED - because it was essentially insoluble with the technology extant - was turning a break-in into a break-through; despite being defeated in the field the German army was able to retire in relatively good order on a strategic scale in 1918 because local tactical and operational success could not be turned into something bigger.