Tanks
In 1914, the “war of
movement” expected by most European generals settled down into an unexpected,
and seemingly unwinnable, war of trenches. With machine guns reinforcing massed
rifle fire from the defending trenches, attackers were mowed down by the
thousands before they could even get to the other side of
“no-man’s-land.”
movement” expected by most European generals settled down into an unexpected,
and seemingly unwinnable, war of trenches. With machine guns reinforcing massed
rifle fire from the defending trenches, attackers were mowed down by the
thousands before they could even get to the other side of
“no-man’s-land.”
Interrupter Gear
Airplanes had been around for just a decade when WWI started, and while they had obvious potential for combat applications, as an aerial platform for bombs and machine guns, it wasn’t quite clear how the latter would work, since the propeller blades got in the way. In the first attempt, the U.S. Army basically tied the gun to the plane (pointing towards the ground) with a leather strap, and it was operated by a gunner who sat beside the pilot.
Aircraft Carriers
he first time an airplane was launched from a moving ship was in May 1912, when commander Charles Rumney Samson piloted a Short S.27 pontoon biplane from a ramp on the deck of the HMS Hibernia in Weymouth Bay. However, the Hibernia wasn’t a true aircraft carrier, since planes couldn’t land on its deck; they had to set down on the water and then be retrieved, slowing the whole process considerably. The first real aircraft carrier was the HMS Furious, which began life as an 786-foot-long battle cruiser equipped with two massive 18-inch guns—until British naval designers figured out that these guns were so large they might shake the ship to pieces.
