Military equipment of the First World War. Military equipment of the First World War

War spurs scientific and technological progress. States leading wars try to destroy enemy soldiers more, and, at the same time, protect their soldiers from defeat. Perhaps the most prolific invention was the first World War.

R2D2. Self-propelled electric firing point. A cable trailed behind her across the entire battlefield.

French trench armor against bullets and shrapnel. 1915

The Sappenpanzer appeared on the Western Front in 1916. In June 1917, having captured several 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 either on the back or on the chest. The first samples collected turned out to be less heavy than later ones, with an initial thickness of 2.3 mm. Material - alloy of steel with silicon and nickel.

The commander and driver of the English Mark I wore such a mask to protect their faces from shrapnel.


Mobile barricade


German soldiers captured a mobile barricade

Mobile infantry shield (France). It’s unclear why there’s a guy with a cat

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

USA. Protection for bomber pilots. Armored trousers.

Various options for armored shields for Detroit police officers.


An Austrian trench shield that could be worn as a breastplate. He could have, but there were no people willing to constantly carry such a heavy piece of iron.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" from Japan.

Armor shield for orderlies.

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

McAdam's shovel-shield, Canada, 1916. Dual use was assumed: 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 inconvenient like a shovel, inconvenient because the loophole was too low like a rifle shield, and was pierced through by rifle bullets. After the war, melted down as scrap metal

Sidecar, UK 1938.

Armored observation post

French bomb throwing machine

Military slingshot

As for armored vehicles, there were the most unimaginable designs


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

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

Armored tires

Truck converted into an armored car

Danish “armored car”, made on the basis of the Gideon 2 T 1917 truck with plywood armor (!).

Peugeot car converted into an armored car

Armored car

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

Military snowmobile

The same, but on wheels

Armored car not based on a Mercedes car

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

To break through fields entangled with barbed wire, they came up with a hay mower like this.

And this is another one that overcame any obstacles.

And this is a prototype of a tank


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

Cart based on a motorcycle.

Armored version

Here protection is only for the machine gunner

Connection


Ambulance


Refueling

A three-wheeled armored motorcycle designed for reconnaissance missions, especially on narrow roads.

Combat water skis

Combat catamaran

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Marienwagen - 4-track all-terrain chassis from the First World War. Also known as the Bremer-Wagen. An order for such a machine by H.G. Bremer received it in July 1915, and presented a prototype in October 1916. The design was reminiscent of a regular car with a front engine and a rear drive axle, but with all the wheels replaced by caterpillar tracks, while only the rear pair of tracks remained driven. An order for 50 of these chassis began to be fulfilled by a plant in Marienfeld on the outskirts of Berlin. The vehicle's armament consisted of one 7.92 mm Maxim machine gun mounted in the turret.

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"MERCEDES" (ALSO "MERCEDES" BYLINSKY, ARMORED CAR BYLINSKY) - a cannon-machine-gun armored car Armed Forces Russian Empire. Developed in 1915 by Staff Captain Bylinsky on the basis of a Mercedes passenger car. The composition and placement of weapons was originally decided. The artillery armament of the armored car was a rapid-firing 37-mm Hotchkiss cannon located inside the hull. The gun was mounted in the middle part fighting compartment on a rotating stand and could fire at the sides of the armored car and back through the folding sheets of the side and rear armor. When the sides of the hull were closed, there was practically nothing to indicate that the armored car had a cannon. On the roof of the fighting compartment, above the cannon, there was a circular rotation turret with a 7.62 mm Maxim machine gun of the 1910 model. In this case, the machine gun turret was attached to the gun pedestal, which significantly facilitated the rotation of the turret. In addition, two 7.62-mm Madsen submachine guns of the 1902 model were additionally transported inside the hull. Having such weapons, the crew of the armored car could conduct almost all-round fire, developing very high firepower for such a vehicle. Artillery weapons, overall solid firepower, extremely high speed for armored vehicles and acceptable armor made these armored vehicles extremely useful combat weapons for their troops and dangerous opponents for the enemy. The armoring and placement of weapons was successful, and the technically high-quality base of the Mercedes was an additional trump card for the armored car. The commission that tested the armored vehicles noted: “...The stability of the vehicles is fully ensured, there are no design errors, the vehicles are easy to drive and can reach more than 60 versts per hour...”. Combat use armored vehicles also demonstrated their high efficiency. However, the use of extremely rare Russian army Mercedes base resulted in a shortage of spare parts, which significantly shortened the service life of these armored cars.

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"Mercedes" (also Bylinsky's Mercedes, Bylinsky's armored car) is a cannon-machine-gun armored vehicle of the Armed Forces of the Russian Empire.

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Rolls-Royce Armored Car is a machine-gun armored vehicle of the British Armed Forces. Developed in 1914 by Rolls-Royce. Between 1914 and 1918, 120 copies of the armored car were produced. Widely used by the British army in the battles of the First World War. At the end of the war, it underwent a number of modernizations and remained in service with the British Army until 1944, taking part in the battles of the initial period of the Second World War and thus being a “long-liver” among the armored vehicles developed during the First World War. In addition to Great Britain, Rolls-Royce armored cars were in service with the armies of Ireland and Poland. A number of experts are inclined to consider the Rolls-Royce the most successful British armored car of the First World War

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First serial tank- “Big Willie” was created by engineer Tritton together with Lieutenant Wilson. Prototype appeared in the fall of 1915. This vehicle easily coped with the task assigned to it of breaking through the enemy’s defenses; the infantry had to go on the offensive after it. Initially, "Willy", like all other models, could not overcome wide ditches, which was due to the structure of the tractor caterpillar. However, a little later it was equipped with a diamond-shaped track, which made it possible to overcome a significant drawback. The model was equipped with a six-cylinder Riccardo engine producing 150 hp. It was located in the rear of the vehicle and had no protection. Exhaust gases entered directly into the structure, which often led to the death of the crew, which consisted of 8 people. The armament was placed in half-turrets on the sides of the structure, they were called sponsons. In my own way appearance the car resembled a tank or tank, which, by and large, gave it its name. They called it tank, which translated from English is “chan”. Subsequently, this became the name for a new type of combat vehicle.

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“ALL-TERRAIN RUN” is an all-terrain vehicle developed by designer Alexander Aleksandrovich Porokhovshchikov in Russia in 1914-1915. In the developments related to this vehicle, A. A. Porokhovshchikov also considered the possibility of installing armor and weapons on it, which is why in Soviet and modern Russian literature the “All-terrain vehicle” is often considered as one of the first Russian tank (wedge) projects. Later, Porokhovshchikov improved his car, making it a wheeled-tracked vehicle: on the roads the car moved on wheels and the rear drum of the caterpillar, when it encountered an obstacle on its way - the “all-terrain vehicle” lay down on the caterpillar and “crawled” over it. This was several years ahead of tank building at that time. Porokhovshchikov made the tank's hull waterproof, as a result of which it could easily overcome water obstacles.

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Renault FT-17 - the first production light tank. The first tank to have a turret of circular rotation (360 degrees), as well as the first tank of a classical layout (control compartment in the front, combat compartment in the center and engine compartment in the rear). The tank's crew consisted of two people - a driver and a commander, who was also involved in servicing the cannon or machine gun. One of the most successful tanks of the First World War. Developed in 1916-1917 under the leadership of Louis Renault as a direct infantry support tank. Adopted by the French army in 1917. About 3,500 copies were produced. In addition, the Renault FT-17 was produced under license in the USA under the name M1917 (Ford Two Man) (950 copies produced) and in Italy under the name FIAT 3000. A modified copy was also produced in Soviet Russia under the name “Renault Russian”.

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At the outbreak of the First World War, Russia had the largest air fleet There are 263 aircraft in the world. Ilya Muromets is the general name of several series of four-engine all-wood biplanes produced in Russia at the Russian-Baltic Carriage Plant during 1914-1919 under the leadership of I. I. Sikorsky. The plane set a number of records for carrying capacity, number of passengers, time and maximum flight altitude. It is the world's first serial multi-engine and passenger aircraft. For the first time in the history of aviation, it was equipped with a comfortable cabin, sleeping rooms and even a bathroom with toilet, separate from the cabin. The Muromets had heating (using engine exhaust gases) and electric lighting. Along the sides there were exits to the lower wing consoles. Bombs weighing about 80 kg were used, less often up to 240 kg. In the fall of 1915, an experiment was carried out to bomb the world's largest, at that time, 410-kilogram bomb

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The Fokker D.VII is a single-seat light high-speed fighter. The plane is considered the best German fighter First World War. In the second half of 1918, Fokker D VII aircraft accounted for 75% of the fleet of German fighter squadrons. This fighter was so good that during the First Compiegne Truce of 1918, a clause was specially introduced obliging the destruction of all Fokker D.VII aircraft. Despite this, the vehicle was in service with a number of countries in post-war period- Anton Fokker managed to secretly preserve many aircraft, and then secretly transport them by train to the neutral Netherlands, where they were updated and sold to the air forces of other countries; for example, the Danish Air Force. Crew: 1 pilot Length: 6.95 m Wingspan: 8.9 m Height: 2.85 m Empty weight: 700 kg Normal take-off weight: 850 kg Engine power: 1 × 180 hp With. (1 × 132 kW) Maximum speed: 200 km/h Flight duration: 1.7 hours Armament Small arms and cannon: 2 × 7.92 mm LMG 08/15 Spandau synchronized machine guns, ammunition 500 rounds per barrel.

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The Albatross D.III was a German biplane fighter and one of the most successful fighter aircraft of the war. Albatros D.III aircraft began to operate in the first months of 1917. During air battles On the Western Front during 1917, Albatros D.III fighters showed their superiority over British and French aircraft. By the fall of 1917, almost 500 Albatros D.III fighters were already in use. The most famous aces of the First World War, the German Manfred von Richthofen, (“Red Baron”) and the Austrian Godwin Brumowski piloted this biplane. Crew: 1 pilot Length: 7.33 m Wingspan: 9.04 m Height: 2.98 m Empty weight: 661 kg Normal take-off weight: 886 kg Engine power: 1 × 175 hp (1 × 129 kW) Maximum speed: 175 km/h Flight duration: 2 hours Service ceiling: 5,500 m Small arms and cannon: 2 × 7.92 mm synchronized machine gun LMG 08/15 "Spandau"

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The aviation of the German Armed Forces was the second largest aviation in the world at the beginning of the First World War. There were about 220 - 230 aircraft. The Germans sought to ensure air superiority through the fastest possible introduction of technical innovations into aviation (for example, fighter aircraft) and during a certain period from the summer of 1915 to the spring of 1916, they practically maintained dominance in the skies at the fronts. The Germans also paid great attention to strategic bombing. Germany was the first country to use air Force to attack the strategic rear of the enemy (factories, settlements, sea harbors). Since 1914, first German airships and then multi-engine bombers regularly bombed rear targets in France, Great Britain and Russia. Germany made a significant bet on rigid airships. During the war, more than 100 rigid airships of the Zeppelin and Schütte-Lanz design were built. Before the war, the Germans mainly planned to use airships for aerial reconnaissance, but it quickly turned out that airships were too vulnerable over land and in the daytime. The main function of heavy airships became maritime patrol, maritime reconnaissance in the interests of navy and long-range night bombings. It was Zeppelin's airships that first brought to life the doctrine of long-range strategic bombing, carrying out raids on London, Paris, Warsaw and other rear cities of the Entente. Although the effect of the use, with the exception of individual cases, was mainly moral, blackout measures and air raids significantly disrupted the work of the Entente industry, which was not ready for such, and the need to organize air defense led to the diversion of hundreds of aircraft, anti-aircraft guns, and thousands of soldiers from the front line.

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At the beginning of 1915, the British and French began to be the first to install machine gun armament on aircraft. Since the propeller interfered with the shelling, machine guns were initially installed on vehicles with a pushing propeller located at the rear and not interfering with firing in the bow hemisphere. The world's first FIGHTER was the British Vickers F.B.5, specially built for air combat with a turret-mounted machine gun.

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Lead tactics air battles in the First World War In the initial period of the war, when two aircraft collided, the battle was fought with personal weapons or with the help of a ram. The ram was first used on September 8, 1914 by the Russian ace Nesterov. As a result, both planes fell to the ground. On March 18, 1915, another Russian pilot used a ram for the first time without crashing his own plane and successfully returned to base. This tactic was used due to the lack machine gun weapons and its low efficiency. The ram required exceptional precision and composure from the pilot, so the rams of Nesterov and Kazakov turned out to be the only ones in the history of the war. In the battles of the late period of the war, aviators tried to bypass the enemy plane from the side, and, going into the enemy’s tail, shoot him with a machine gun. This tactic was also used in group battles, with the pilot who showed the initiative winning; causing the enemy to fly away. The style of air combat with active maneuvering and close-range shooting was called “dogfight” (“dog fight”) and until the 1930s dominated the idea of ​​air warfare

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, and changes in combat tactics.

For the first time in military operations it was widely used aviation- first for reconnaissance, and then for bombing 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 Ilya Muromets airship squadron - the world's first formation of heavy four-engine bombers. The decision to create a squadron was approved on December 10 (23), 1914 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 Plant, where the Ilya Muromets airships were built. In 2016 it will be 160 years since the birth of M.V. Shidlovsky, by order of the Sovereign-Emperor called up for active duty 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, and was able to demonstrate the extraordinary capabilities of combining such machines.

The need to fight in the air logically explains the emergence of fighter aircraft 100th anniversary which we will celebrate in 2016. And at the beginning of September 1914, the first full-time fighter aviation detachment in Russia, created exclusively from among volunteers, was sent to the Warsaw area, under the command of the outstanding Russian naval pilot, Senior Lieutenant N.A. Yatsuka, known as one of the founders 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, according to which the formation of the first full-time fighter aviation squads began in the 2nd, 7th and 12th armies, respectively 2- th, 7th and 12th. On April 16, 1916, Second Lieutenant I.A. Orlov, commander of the 7th Fighter Squadron, reported to Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich that the first Russian fighter squadron had been formed and was ready to go to the front.

2016 also marked 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 conducted 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. This is how 76-mm field guns of the 1902 model were adapted for firing at air targets. These guns were placed with their wheels not on the ground, but on special stands - anti-aircraft machines of a primitive design. Thanks to such a machine, it was possible to give the gun a significantly larger elevation angle, and therefore eliminate the main obstacle that did not allow firing at an airborne enemy from a conventional “ground” cannon. 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 in a full circle. At the beginning of the First World War, in 1914, “adapted” guns were the only means of fighting aircraft. "Adapted" guns were used throughout the First World War. But even then, special anti-aircraft guns began to appear that had better ballistic qualities. First anti-aircraft gun model 1914 was created at the Putilov plant by the Russian designer F. F. Lender. So, the years of the First World War can be considered the time of birth anti-aircraft artillery Russia. The 100th anniversary of the country's air defense forces will be celebrated in 2014.

First used in combat chemical weapon mass destruction. 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 on the Western Front - a new crime weapon mass extermination. Gas chlorine was released from the cylinders. The wind carried a heavy greenish-yellow cloud, spreading along the ground itself, towards the trenches of the Anglo-French troops. In 2016, it will be 100 years since the first gas attack by Russian troops in the Smorgon region on September 5-6, 1916. The years of the First World War can be considered the date foundation of the radiation-chemical and biological protection troops of Russia. In Russia, about 200 chemical plants which laid the foundation of the Russian chemical industry, and academician Zelinsky N.D. invented efficient coal mask.

Years Great War marked by the appearance of armored vehicles, armored vehicles, tanks capable of moving over rough terrain and overcoming trenches, scarps, ditches, and wire fences.

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 actively used 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 were Russian submariners.

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

ARMORED CARS

“I never understood why we had to fight,” the American bard Bob Dylan once sang about the First World War. Whether it is necessary or not, the first high-tech conflict in human history began exactly a hundred years ago, claimed millions of lives and radically changed the course of history in the Old World, and throughout the world. For the first time, scientific and technological progress has shown with such incredible force that it can be deadly and dangerous for civilization.

By 1914 Western Europe lost the habit of big wars. The last great conflict - the Franco-Prussian War - took place almost half a century before the first salvos of the First World War. But that war of 1870 directly or indirectly led to the final formation of two large states - the German Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. These new players felt stronger than ever, but left behind in a world where Britain ruled the seas, France had vast colonies, and the vast Russian Empire had a major influence on European affairs.

The great slaughter for the redivision of the world had been brewing for a long time, and when it finally began, politicians and the military had not yet understood that wars in which officers prance on horses in bright uniforms, and the outcome of the conflict is decided in large but fleeting battles of professional armies (such as major battles in the Napoleonic Wars) are a thing of the past.

The era of trenches and pillboxes, camouflage-colored field uniforms and months-long positional “butts” had arrived, when soldiers died in the tens of thousands, and the front line hardly moved in either direction. The Second World War, of course, was also associated with great progress in the military-technical field - just look at the missile and nuclear weapon. But in terms of the number of various innovations, the First World War is hardly inferior to the Second, if not superior to it.

In this article we will mention ten of them, although the list could be expanded. Let's say formally military aviation and combat submarines appeared even before the war, but revealed their potential precisely in the battles of the First World War. During this period, air and submarine warships have acquired many important improvements.

The plane turned out to be a very promising platform for placing weapons, but it was not immediately clear how exactly to place it there. In the first air battles, pilots shot at each other with revolvers. They tried to hang machine guns from below on belts or place them above the cockpit, but all this created problems with aiming. It would be nice to place the machine gun directly in front of the cockpit, but how to shoot through the propeller?

This engineering problem was solved back in 1913 by the Swiss Franz Schneider, but it was truly working firing synchronization system, where the machine gun was mechanically connected to the engine shaft, was developed by the Dutch aircraft designer Anthony Fokker. In May 1915, German planes, whose machine guns fired through the propeller, entered the battle, and soon the air forces of the Entente countries adopted the innovation.

The firing synchronizer allowed the pilots to conduct targeted fire from a machine gun through the propeller blades.

It’s not easy to believe, but it also dates back to the First World War. first experience in creating an unmanned aircraft , which became the ancestor of both UAVs and cruise missiles. Two American inventors - Elmer Sperry and Peter Hewitt - developed an unmanned biplane in 1916-1917, the task of which was to deliver an explosive charge to the target. No one had heard of any electronics at that time, and the device had to maintain direction using gyroscopes and an altimeter based on a barometer. In 1918, it came to the first flight, but the accuracy of the weapon “left much to be desired” that the military abandoned the new product.

The first UAV took off in 1918, but never made it to the battlefield. Accuracy failed.

The flourishing of underwater operations forced engineering thought to actively work on creating means of detecting and destroying those hidden in sea ​​depths warships. Primitive hydrophones - microphones for listening to underwater noise - existed back in the 19th century: they consisted of a membrane and a resonator in the form of a bell-shaped pipe. Work on listening to the sea intensified after the collision of the Titanic with an iceberg - it was then that the idea of ​​active sound sonar arose.

And finally, already during the First World War thanks to the work of a French engineer and in the future public figure Paul Langevin, as well as the Russian engineer Konstantin Chilovsky, was created sonar, based on ultrasound and the piezoelectric effect - this device could not only determine the distance to an object, but also indicate the direction towards it. The first German submarine was detected by sonar and destroyed in April 1916.

The hydrophone and sonar were a response to the successes of German submariners. Submarine stealth has suffered.

The fight against German submarines led to the emergence of such weapons as depth charges. The idea originated within the walls of the Royal Naval Torpedo and Mine School (Britain) in 1913. The main task was to create a bomb that would explode only at a given depth and could not damage surface ships and vessels.

Depth charges. The hydrostatic fuse measured the water pressure and was activated only at a certain value.

Whatever happened at sea and in the air, the main battles were fought on land. The increased firepower of artillery and especially the proliferation of machine guns quickly discouraged fighting in open spaces. Now the opponents competed in the ability to dig as many rows of trenches as possible and bury themselves deeper into the ground, which more reliably protected them from heavy storms. artillery fire than forts and fortresses - those that were in fashion in the previous era. Of course, earthen fortifications have existed since ancient times, but it was only during the First World War that gigantic continuous front lines emerged, carefully excavated on both sides.

Endless trenches. Artillery and machine gun fire forced the enemy to dig in, resulting in a positional stalemate.

Trench lines The Germans supplemented them with separate concrete firing points - the successors of the forts, which later received the name pillboxes. This experience was not very successful - more powerful pillboxes, capable of withstanding heavy artillery strikes, appeared already in the interwar period. But here we can remember that the giant multi-level concrete fortifications of the Maginot Line did not save the French in 1940 from the impact of Wehrmacht tank wedges.

Military thought has moved on. Burying into the ground led to a positional crisis, when the defense on both sides became so high-quality that breaking through it turned out to be a fiendishly difficult task. A classic example is the Verdun meat grinder, in which numerous mutual offensives each time choked in a sea of ​​fire, leaving thousands of corpses on the battlefield, without giving a decisive advantage to either side.

The pillboxes strengthened the German defensive lines, but were vulnerable to heavy artillery strikes.

Battles often took place at night, in the dark. In 1916, the British “delighted” the troops with another novelty - .303 Inch Mark I tracer bullets, leaving a greenish glowing trail.

Tracer bullets made targeted shooting possible at night.

In this situation, military minds focused on creating a kind of battering ram that would help the infantry break through the rows of trenches. For example, the “barrage of fire” tactics were developed, when a wave of explosions from artillery shells rolled ahead of the infantry advancing on the enemy trenches. His task was to “clean up” the trenches as much as possible before they were captured by infantrymen. But this tactic also had disadvantages in the form of losses among the attackers from “friendly” fire.

Some help for the attackers could be light automatic weapon, but his time has not yet come. True, the first samples light machine guns, submachine guns and automatic rifles also appeared during the First World War. In particular, the first Beretta submachine gun The Model 1918 was created by designer Tulio Marengoni and entered service with the Italian army in 1918.

The Beretta submachine gun ushered in the era of light automatic weapons.

Perhaps the most notable innovation, which was aimed at overcoming the positional deadlock, was tank. The first-born was the British Mark I, developed in 1915 and sent to attack German positions at the Battle of the Somme in September 1916. Early tanks were slow and clumsy and were the prototypes of breakthrough tanks, relatively armored vehicles resistant to enemy fire that supported advancing infantry.

Following the British, the Renault FT tank was built by the French. The Germans also made their own A7V, but they weren’t particularly zealous in tank building. Two decades later, it was the Germans who would find a new use for their already more agile tanks - they would begin to use tank forces as a separate tool for rapid strategic maneuver and would stumble over their own invention only at Stalingrad.

Tanks were still slow, clumsy and vulnerable, but they turned out to be a very promising type of military equipment.

Poisonous gases- another attempt to suppress defense in depth and a genuine " business card» carnage on the European theater of operations. It all started with tear and irritant gases: in the battle of Bolimov (the territory of modern Poland), the Germans used them against Russian troops artillery shells with xylobromide.

Warfare gases caused numerous casualties, but did not become a superweapon. But even animals appeared to have gas masks.

Then it's time for the gases that kill. On April 22, 1915, the Germans released 168 tons of chlorine onto French positions near the Ypres River. In response, the French developed phosgene, and in 1917, near the same river Ypres German army used mustard gas. The gas arms race continued throughout the war, although chemical warfare agents did not give either side a decisive advantage. In addition, the danger of gas attacks led to the flourishing of another pre-war invention - gas mask.

War is not the best engine of progress, believed Sakamoto Ryoma, Japanese political figure mid-19th century. And yet, the First World War, which claimed millions of lives and became the “grave of three empires,” left some survivors.

The caterpillar propulsion device, invented for difficult terrain, began to be used on heavy military equipment and underwent numerous improvements. Over the course of four war years, airplanes evolved from wooden-framed “shelves” to all-metal airplanes as we are accustomed to seeing them.

As for the car, it began the First World War already fully established. He had already completed the first breakthrough from self-propelled steam carriages to assembly line assembly in thousands of copies before the sad events. During his years of 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 to it an American machine gun of the Maxim system (a popular weapon at the turn of the century) and thus created the world's first combat vehicle, having all the attributes that have been preserved for many years: weapons, engine and wheels.

Of course, it was just a prototype, which, although it had time to ride on the battlefields, was not accepted into service and did not find widespread use at that time. However, the author’s idea of ​​initiative has not diminished 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-propelled strollers began to fill the cities. There were only six years left before the war.

The most interesting thing is that the first bloodshed took place with the direct participation of a car. Archduke Franz Ferdinand died in the 1910 Gräf & Stift Double Phaeton open limousine while driving it around Sarajevo with the owner of the car and his friend Count Franz von Harrach.

The path to popularity

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 found themselves at the front 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 cart and could carry the wounded, ammunition, and even carry weapons just as well, and sometimes better than horses. At the same time, the first barricades against cars appeared on the roads - wire barriers. And very soon - “anti-partisan” equipment for cars, which made it possible to cut or remove obstacles from the road.

It also unexpectedly turned out that it is much more convenient to patrol roads by 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 used.

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

Even real road trains were used for general military needs in the First World War.

We were lying a little when we said that the war did not bring anything new to the auto industry. There was something after all. In cars at the beginning of the century, tires made up a fairly significant part of the cost, and in war conditions the wheels were the first to become unusable. Therefore, talented German engineers came up with the idea of ​​installing springs with steel lugs instead of elastic rubber tires in order to move relatively calmly without fear of nails. But how many cars have you seen with such wheels now?