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Artillery mainly fired shrapnel, high explosives or, later in the war, gas shells. The British experimented with firing incendiary "thermite" shells to set trees and ruins alight.
Artillery pieces were of two types; guns and howitzers. Guns fired high velocity shells over a flat trajectory and were often used to deliver shrapnel and to cut barbed wire. Howitzers lofted the shell over a high trajectory such that it plunged into the ground. The biggest artillery were usually howitzers. The German 420 howitzer weighed 20 tons and could fire a one ton shell over six miles.
A critical feature of modern artillery pieces was the hydraulic recoil mechanism which meant that the gun did not need to be re-aimed after each shell was fired. Initially each gun would need to register its aim on a known target, in view of an observer, in order to fire with precision during a battle. The process of gun registration would often alert the enemy that an attack was being planned. Towards the end of 1917, artillery techniques were developed enabling guns to be aimed accurately without the need for registration.
See main article: Use of poison gas in World War I
Tear gas was first employed in August 1914 by the French but this could only disable the enemy. In April 1915, chlorine was first used by Germany at the Second Battle of Ypres. A large enough dose could kill but the gas was easy to detect by scent and sight. Those that were not killed on exposure could suffer permanent lung damage. Phosgene, first used in December 1915, was the ultimate killing gas of World War I — it was 18 times more powerful than chlorine and much more difficult to detect. However, the most effective gas was mustard gas, introduced by Germany in July 1917. Mustard gas was not as fatal as phosgene but it was hard to detect and lingered on the surface of the battlefield and so could inflict casualties over a long period. The burns it produced were so horrific that a casualty resulting from mustard gas exposure was unlikely to be fit to fight again. Only 2% of mustard gas casualties died, mainly from secondary infections.The first method of employing gas was by releasing it from a cylinder when the wind was favourable. Such an approach was obviously prone to miscarry if the direction of the wind was misjudged. Also the cylinders needed to be positioned in the front trenches where they were liable to be ruptured during a bombardment. Later in the war, gas was delivered by artillery or mortar shell.
During the first year of the war, none of the combatant nations equipped their troops with steel helmets. Soldiers went into battle wearing simple cloth or leather caps that offered virtually no protection from the damage caused by modern weapons. German troops were wearing the traditional leather pickelhaube (spiked helmet), with a covering of cloth to protect the leather from the splattering of mud. Once the war entered the phase of trench warfare, the number of lethal head wounds that troops were receiving from shrapnel increased dramatically.
The French were the first to see a need for greater protection and began to introduce the first steel helmets in the summer of 1915. The Adrian helmet (designed by August-Louse Adrian) replaced the traditional French kepi and was later adopted by the Belgian and Italian armies.
At about the same time the British were developing their own helmets. The French design was rejected as not strong enough and too difficult to mass produce. The design that was eventually approved by the British was the Brodie helmet (designed by John L. Brodie) This British helmet had a wide brim to protect the wearer from falling objects but offered less protection to the neck of the wearer.
The traditional German pickelhaube was replaced by the stahlhelm or "coal-scuttle helmet" in 1916.
The fundamental purpose of the aircraft in trench warfare was reconnaissance and artillery observation. The role of the fighter was to protect his own reconnaissance aircraft and to destroy those of the enemy, or at least deny them the freedom of his airspace. This involved achieving air superiority over the battlefield by destroying the enemy's fighters as well. Spotter aircraft would monitor the fall of shells during registration of the artillery. Reconnaissance aircraft would photograph trench lines, monitor enemy troop movements, and locate enemy artillery batteries so that they could be destroyed with counter-battery fire.
The Germans employed flame throwers (flammenwerfer) during the war but the technology was not mature so they were more effective at inducing terror than inflicting casualties.
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