History of the First World War. Presentation on the topic "Technique of the First World War" Military equipment during the years of World War 1

The years of the First World War were marked by the appearance and use of new types of weapons and military equipment on the fronts, a change in the tactics of warfare.

For the first time in military operations, it was widely used aviation- first for reconnaissance, and then for the bombardment of troops at the front, in the near rear. In 2014 it will be 100 years of Russian long-range aviation. Long-range aviation originates from the squadron of airships "Ilya Muromets" - the world's first formation of heavy four-engine bombers. The decision to create a squadron on December 10 (23), 1914 was approved by Emperor Nicholas II. Shidlovsky M.V. became the head of the squadron. Former naval officer, chairman of the board of shareholders of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works, which built the Ilya Muromets airships. In 2016 it will be 160 years since the birth of M.V. Shidlovsky, by order of the Sovereign-Emperor, called up for active military service with the rank of Major General and appointed Head of the Ilya Muromets Aircraft Squadron. M. V. Shidlovsky became the first aviation general in Russia. During the First World War, he was an active creator of the strategy and tactics for the use of heavy airships, he was able to show the extraordinary possibilities of connecting such machines.

The need to fight in the air is logically due to the emergence of fighter aircraft 100th anniversary which we will celebrate in 2016. And in early September 1914, the first full-time fighter aviation detachment in Russia, created exclusively from among volunteers, was sent to the Warsaw region under the command of an outstanding Russian naval pilot, senior lieutenant N.A. Yatsuka, known as one of the pioneers of air combat tactics. On March 25, 1916, the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Infantry General M.V. Alekseev, signed order No. 329, in accordance with which the formation of the first full-time fighter aviation detachments, respectively 2 th, 7th and 12th. On April 16, 1916, Lieutenant I.A. Orlov, commander of the 7th Fighter Squadron, reported to Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich that the first Russian fighter aviation squadron had been formed and was ready to go to the front.

2016 is also marked by the 100th anniversary of the birth of Russian naval aviation. On July 17, 1916, during the First World War, the crews of four seaplanes from the Orlitsa air transport carried out the first group air battle over the Baltic Sea with German pilots, which ended in victory for the Russian aviators.

The development of aviation and its active use led to the development of means of combat. So the field 76-mm guns of the 1902 model were adapted for firing at air targets. These guns were placed with wheels not on the ground, but on special pedestals - anti-aircraft machines of a primitive design. Thanks to such a machine tool, it was possible to give the gun a much larger elevation angle, and therefore eliminate the main obstacle that prevented a conventional "ground" gun from firing at an air enemy. The anti-aircraft machine made it possible not only to raise the barrel high, but also to quickly turn the entire gun in any direction for a full circle. At the beginning of the First World War, in 1914, "adapted" guns were the only means of combating aircraft. "Adjusted" guns were used throughout the First World War. But even then, special anti-aircraft guns began to appear, which had the best ballistic qualities. The first anti-aircraft gun of the 1914 model was created at the Putilov factory by the Russian designer F.F. Lender. So, the years of the First World War can be considered the time of the birth of anti-aircraft artillery in Russia. The 100th anniversary of the country's air defense forces will be celebrated in 2014.

For the first time, chemical weapons of mass destruction were used in combat operations. In the war of 1914-1918, the Germans used chemical shells on the Russian front in January 1915. In April 1915, the German command used poison gases, a new criminal weapon of mass destruction, on the Western Front. Gas chlorine was released from the cylinders. The wind carried a heavy greenish-yellow cloud, creeping along the ground itself, towards the trenches of the Anglo-French troops. In 2016, the first gas balloon attack by Russian troops in the Smorgon region on September 5-6, 1916 will be 100 years old. The years of the First World War can be considered a date foundation of the troops of radiation-chemical and biological protection of Russia. In Russia, it was rapidly deployed about 200 chemical plants that laid the foundation for the chemical industry in Russia, and academician Zelinsky N.D. invented efficient coal mask.

The years of the Great War were marked by the appearance of armored vehicles, armored vehicles, tanks capable of moving over rough terrain and overcoming trenches, scarps, ditches, and barbed wire.

For the first time, submarines were also actively used in hostilities. The Russian fleet was one of the few that had underwater combat experience and was actively used in submarines in the Baltic theater of operations. The experience of the First World War showed that submarines became a serious fighting force, the founder of which was Russian submariners.

In this section, we will try to place materials on the technology of the First World War used in the Russian Army and Navy, allied countries and the armies of the opposing side.

When European armies went to the front in 1914, they still had horses and bayonets in their arsenal, and by the end of the war, no one could surprise anyone with machine guns, aerial bombardments, armored vehicles and chemical weapons. The weapons inspired by the spirit of romance were replaced by gaseous chlorine, huge shells with a flight range of more than 30 kilometers and machine guns spitting out bullets like from a fire hose. Each of the parties to the conflict actively used modern technologies and invented new methods in the hope of gaining the upper hand over the enemy. Armored vehicles made armies invulnerable to small arms, tanks made it possible to go on the offensive right along barbed wire and trenches, telephones and heliographs made it possible to transmit information over long distances, and planes relentlessly sowed death from the sky. Thanks to scientific developments, the enemy armies have become more powerful, but at the same time more vulnerable. American soldiers use an acoustic locator on wheels. Acoustic locators were actively improved during the First World War, but fell into disuse with the advent of radar in the 1940s.
Austrian armored train, circa 1915.
An armored train car from the inside, Chaplino, modern Dnepropetrovsk region, Ukraine, spring 1918. The carriage contains at least six machine guns and many boxes of ammunition.
German signalmen pedal a tandem to generate power for a radio station, September 1917.
Entente advance on Bapaume, France, circa 1917. The soldiers follow the tanks.
A soldier on an American Harley-Davidson motorcycle, circa 1918. During World War I, the United States sent more than 20,000 Indian and Harley-Davidson motorcycles to the front.
British Mark A Whippet tanks advance along a road near Achiie-le-Petit, France, August 22, 1918.
A German soldier polishes shells for a 38 cm SK L/45 “Max” railroad artillery gun, circa 1918. The gun could fire 750-kilogram shells at a distance of up to 34 kilometers.
German infantrymen in gas masks and Stahlhelm helmets in positions in the course of communication on the Western Front.
The false tree is a disguised British observation post.
Turkish soldiers using a heliograph, 1917 A heliograph is a wireless optical telegraph that transmits signals by flashes of sunlight, usually in Morse code.
An experimental Red Cross transport designed to protect wounded soldiers from the trenches, circa 1915.
American soldiers put on gas masks in a trench. A signal flare takes off behind them.
German trench digging machine, January 8, 1918. Thousands of kilometers of trenches were dug by hand, and only a small part with the help of machinery.
German soldiers with a field telephone.
Loading a German A7V tank onto a railway platform on the Western Front
An example of a false horse behind which snipers were hiding in no man's land.
Welders at Lincoln Motor Co. In Detroit, Michigan, circa 1918.
The tank goes to the flamethrower, circa 1918.
Abandoned tanks on the battlefield in Ypres, Belgium, circa 1918.
A German soldier with a camera near a wrecked British Mark IV tank and a dead tanker, 1917.
The use of gas masks in Mesopotamia, 1918.
American soldiers set up a 37mm automatic cannon near a trench in Alsace, France on June 26, 1918.
American soldiers in French Renault FT-17 tanks head to the front line in the Argonne Forest, France, September 26, 1918.
German pilot's suit, equipped with an electrically heated mask, vest and fur boots. During the flight on aircraft with an open cockpit, pilots had to withstand sub-zero temperatures.
British Mark I tank, foot soldiers, horses and mules.
Turkish soldiers with a German 105mm howitzer M98/09.
Irish Guards wearing gas masks during an exercise on the Somme, September 1916.
A temporary wooden bridge on the site of a destroyed steel bridge across the Scheldt River in France. British tank that fell into the river when the previous bridge was destroyed serves as a support for the new bridge
Telegraph in room 15 of the Elysee Palace Hotel in Paris, France, September 4, 1918.
German officers near an armored car in Ukraine, spring 1918.
Soldiers from the 69th Australian Squadron attach firebombs to an R.E.8 aircraft at an airfield northwest of Arras, France.
Six machine gun brigades preparing to leave for France, circa 1918. The brigade consisted of two people: a motorcycle driver and a machine gunner.
New Zealand soldiers in a trench and a Jumping Jennie tank in Gomkur, France, August 10, 1918.
The German military look at the broken British anti-aircraft installation, dead soldiers, empty cartridge boxes.
American soldiers training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, circa 1918.
German soldiers are charging gas-guns.
Front in Flanders. Gas attack, September 1917.
French sentinels at the post in a trench entwined with barbed wire.
American and French photographers, France, 1917.
Italian howitzer Obice da 305/17. Less than 50 such howitzers were produced.
The use of flamethrowers on the Western Front.
French army mobile radiology laboratory, circa 1914.
A British Mark IV tank, captured and repainted by the Germans, is abandoned in the forest.
The first American tank Holt, 1917.

War spurs scientific and technological progress. The states leading wars are trying to destroy the enemy soldiers more, and, at the same time, to protect their soldiers from defeat. Perhaps the most prolific invention was the First World War.

R2D2. Self-propelled firing point on electric traction. Behind her, a cable dragged across the battlefield.

French trench armor against bullets and shrapnel. 1915

Sappenpanzer appeared on the Western Front in 1916. In June 1917, after capturing some German body armor, the Allies conducted research. According to these documents, the German body armor can stop a rifle bullet at a distance of 500 meters, but its main purpose is against shrapnel and shrapnel. The vest can be hung both on the back and on the chest. The first samples assembled were found to be less heavy than later ones, with an initial thickness of 2.3 mm. Material - an alloy of steel with silicon and nickel.

Such a mask was worn by the commander and driver of the English Mark I to protect their faces from shrapnel.


Mobile barricade


German soldiers captured a mobile barricade

Mobile infantry shield (France). It is not clear why there is a man with a cat

Experimental helmets for machine gunners on airplanes. USA, 1918.

USA. Protection for bomber pilots. Armored pants.

Various options for armored shields for police officers from Detroit.


An Austrian trench shield that could be worn as a breastplate. He could have, but there were no people who wanted to constantly drag such a heavy piece of iron on themselves.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Japan.

Armored shield for orderlies.

Individual armor protection with the uncomplicated name "Turtle". As far as I understand, this thing did not have a “sex” and the fighter himself moved it.

Shovel-shield McAdam, Canada, 1916. Dual use was supposed: both as a shovel and a shooting shield. It was ordered by the Canadian government in a series of 22,000 pieces. As a result, the device was uncomfortable as a shovel, uncomfortable due to the too low location of the loophole as a rifle shield, and was pierced through by rifle bullets. After the war melted down as scrap metal

Carriage, UK 1938.

Armored observation post

French bomber

military slingshot

As for armored vehicles, the most unimaginable designs existed here.


On April 24, 1916, an anti-government uprising broke out in Dublin (Easter Rising - Easter Rising) and the British needed at least some armored vehicles to move troops along the shelled streets.

On April 26, in just 10 hours, specialists from the 3rd Reserve Cavalry Regiment, using the equipment of the workshops of the Southern Railway in Inchicore, were able to assemble an armored car from an ordinary commercial 3-ton Daimler truck chassis and ... a steam boiler. Both the chassis and the boiler were delivered from the Guinness Brewery

armored rubber

Truck converted into an armored car

Danish "armored car", based on the Gideon 2 T 1917 truck with plywood armor(!).

Peugeot car converted into an armored car

Bronetachanka

This is some kind of hybrid of an aircraft and an armored car.

Military snowmobiles

Same but on wheels

Armored car not based on a Mercedes car

In June 1915, the production of the Marienwagen tractor began at the Daimler plant in Berlin-Marienfelde. This tractor was produced in several versions: semi-tracked, fully tracked, although their base was a 4-ton Daimler tractor.

To break through the fields, entangled with barbed wire, they came up with just such a hay wire mower.

And this is another one that overcame any obstacles.

And this is a tank prototype


Tank FROT-TURMEL-LAFFLY, a wheeled tank built on the chassis of the Laffly road roller. Protected by 7 mm armor, weighs about 4 tons, armed with two 8 mm machine guns and a mitrailleuse of unknown type and caliber. By the way, the armament in the photograph is much stronger than the declared one - apparently the “holes for the gun” were cut with a margin.
The exotic shape of the hull is due to the fact that the idea of ​​​​the designer (the same Mr. Frot), the car was intended to attack wire obstacles, which the car had to crush with its body - after all, monstrous wire fences, along with machine guns, were one of the main problems for the infantry.

A cart based on a motorcycle.

Armored variant

Here protection is only for the machine gunner

Connection


Ambulance


Refueling

Three-wheeled armored motorcycle designed for reconnaissance tasks, especially for narrow roads.

Combat water skiing

Combat catamaran

War is not the best engine of progress, said Sakamoto Ryoma, a Japanese politician in the mid-19th century. And yet the First World War, which claimed millions of lives and became the "grave of three empires," left something behind the survivors.

The caterpillar mover, invented for difficult terrain, began to be used on heavy military equipment and underwent numerous improvements. During the four war years, airplanes evolved from wooden-framed "whatnots" to purpose-metal aircraft, as we are accustomed to seeing them.

As for the car, it started World War I already quite successful. The first breakthrough from self-propelled steam carriages to conveyor assembly in thousands of copies had already passed before sad events. During the years of his service in the army in 1914-1919, nothing radically new was introduced.

Military debut

Moreover, the first armed conflict involving a car began 15 years before the First World War - during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, also famous for another "innovation", although much more dubious - concentration camps for prisoners of war and civilians .

The Englishman F. Simms took the French car De Dion-Bouton (De Dion-Bouton), adapted the American machine gun of the Maxim system (a popular weapon at the turn of the century) to it and thus created the world's first combat vehicle that has all the attributes that have been preserved for many years: armament, engine and wheels.

Of course, it was just a prototype, which, although it managed to ride around the battlefields, was not adopted for service and did not find wide application then. However, the author of the idea of ​​initiative did not diminish at all. Simms clearly understood that over time his invention would be appreciated, and therefore, in 1902, he created the world's first armored car.

This funny armored car never took part in a single battle. But in 1908, Henry Ford launched the first mass-produced Model T, and self-running carriages began to fill the cities. The war was only six years away.

The most interesting thing is that the first bloodshed happened with the direct participation of the car. Archduke Franz Ferdinand died in the interior of a 1910 Gräf & Stift Double Phaeton open limousine while driving in Sarajevo with the owner of the car and part-time friend Count Franz von Harrach.

Path to fame

Despite the fact that the conservative generals of all the warring parties at the beginning of the war were guided by the principles of the 1870s and stubbornly did not draft cars into the army, our four-wheeled friends often ended up at the front themselves and were used to transport those same generals.

After the first battles, the commanders quickly realized that a car was a completely reasonable replacement for a horse-drawn wagon and could carry the wounded, ammunition and even carry weapons just as well, and sometimes better than horses. At the same time, the first barriers against cars appeared on the roads - wire. And very soon - "anti-partisan" equipment for vehicles, which made it possible to cut or remove barriers from the road.

It also unexpectedly turned out that it was much more convenient to patrol the roads in a car than on horseback, and even more so than on foot. Therefore, private cars of officers, as well as cars captured from the enemy, quickly began to be exploited.

Another job for cars, mostly trucks, was found in the medical service. During the First World War, for the first time, they began to organize the production of vehicles for transporting the wounded. The apogee of this was the Opel of the medical service, captured by an unknown photographer, equipped with a field altar.

For combined arms needs in the First World War, even real road trains were used

We were a little cunning, saying that the war did not bring anything new to the auto industry. Still, there was something. In automobiles of the beginning of the century, tires made up a rather serious part of the cost, and in the conditions of war, the wheels became unusable first. Therefore, talented German engineers came up with the idea of ​​putting springs with steel lugs instead of an elastic rubber tire in order to move relatively calmly without fear of nails. But by the way, how many cars have you seen now with such wheels?

The First World War was a turning point of the 20th century - it radically changed the political map of Europe, destroying four huge empires and giving rise to a number of nation-states. Many historians agree that it was she who marked the end of the "political nineteenth century" in Europe. The First World War lasted four years and three and a half months (from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918) and became the largest military conflict that the history of mankind knew at that time. During this global confrontation, military equipment was rapidly developing in the world - automatic small arms were actively modernized, armored vehicles appeared on the battlefields, and a war of airplanes began in the sky. More than 70 million people were mobilized into the armed forces of the countries participating in the First World War.

The unprecedented scope of the First World War required the mobilization of the efforts of all categories of the population of the warring states, thereby largely blurring the line between the army and society, which was previously quite clear. It is not surprising that already in the first days of the war in the public space and the official propaganda of many countries, the concept of "people's war" was brought to the fore, implying the struggle of the whole people in the name of protection from external aggression, achieving final victory over the enemy and "just eternal peace" . In many ways, this explains the enthusiasm with which the news of its beginning was perceived in the countries that entered the war. The American historian and sociologist Georgy Derlugyan gives a typical example: “In the summer of 1914, all the powers that entered the war habitually prepared to catch many deserters - which were then surprisingly few. Such was the power of modern patriotic propaganda.” Interestingly, even in multinational European empires - for example, the Russian, as well as the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary (Austria-Hungary) - the 1914 mobilization took place without serious problems.
In the "Great War", which history did not know before, not only the armies and the political establishment, but also scientists, writers, artists, and the clergy actively participated. In particular, the propaganda apparatus of the warring states has become an important participant in the global conflict. Today, many experts believe that the First World War can be regarded as the first great media war in history. In terms of its impact on the future of Europe, this “war of ideas” was not inferior to the “war of armies”, destroying the socio-economic prerequisites that had appeared earlier for launching the process of European integration, giving rise to a number of totalitarian ideologies, mass political movements guided by them, as well as projects for a radical redivision of Europe and peace.
The results of the First World War were, without exaggeration, revolutionary - it became obvious that henceforth large-scale conflicts would be in the nature of a total war, which implies the involvement of almost the entire population in them and the use of all the economic resources of the warring states. One of the most important consequences of the First World War was the radical territorial changes carried out by the victors - most often this was done on an ethno-cultural basis. At the same time, this principle was inapplicable to many parts of Europe due to the dispersed settlement of many ethnic groups. In addition, many new borders were not recognized: for example, Romania and Hungary entered into a protracted political conflict over Transylvania, Czechoslovakia and Poland over the Teshin region, Romania and Bulgaria over Dobruja.
On the Warspot portal you can find publications about the First World War and its participants.