[Mr. D. Bryant]

Although this subject has been covered before, this post aims to collect a number of different links together as well as making a few points about the information given.

The best place to start is probably the excellent Spartacus Schoolnet site which has an index of a number of pages on weapons here. This includes coverage of machine-guns, rifles and the bayonet.

The Learning Curve website of the National Archives has an activity which uses original documents to find out more about British weapons here. This requires thought and input, but would look very impressive if used as part of a project, for example.

Spartacus mentions tanks, however there is a very good picture explanation of what the first British tanks were like on the BBC History website on this page.

There is a very detailed account of a poison gas attack on the eyewitness to History website.

If you want to know more about individual types of weapons e.g the Vickers Machine Gun, or the Lee-Enfield Rifle, I would suggest you seach the internet, where you will find far more than most people will ever need to know!

A few things to note. Artillery (big guns firing shrapnel or high explosive shells), not machine guns, was the biggest killer in the First World War. Machine guns were undoubtedly effective and by the end of the war all sides (not just the Germans) used them extensively. However, they were more use in defence than attack and it was the allies that were generally attacking. Finally, although the number of men killed or wounded by bayonets was small, the threat of determined soldiers getting close enough to use their bayonets was often enough to make the enemy run away.

I hope that this all makes sense and saves you some time. If there is anything you don't understand, please ask.

[jennzie]

thank you so much for the information!
weapons in ww1 was just our homework we had to do!!!

thank you

[go_submerge!]

Hi,

I need to do a project on WW1 and am having trouble finding info about weapons, especially bayonets. If any one can help, that would be great but if not no worries.

December

[Mr. D. Bryant]

It depends to some extent on what you need to find out. I think that the best thing to do would be a forum search to see what else has been written; I know that this subject has been looked at recently.

If you want to know about different types of bayonet, then a google or similar search would turn up a lot of information.

Although the bayonet caused relatively few casualties compared to artillery, for example, the threat of the bayonet was sometimes enough to drive troops from their trenches, if the attackers could get close enough to the defenders. Too often, they couldn't.