The weapon of WWI

Meanwhile, the large model which was not ideal for transport can emit a stream of fire twice as long as the small model emits. The stream of fire could last for forty seconds (Biddle, 2006). July 30, 1915 marked the first use of the flamethrowers of the Germans against the British. The British army lost at least 31 officers and 700 others during the flamethrower attack (Graham, 2006). After witnessing how effective the flamethrower was, the British army then experimented to have their model. Their attempt, however, did not give them sustained benefits as some of the flamethrowers they experimented in were destroyed.

The using of flamethrowers and grenades

During the war, the attacks of the German army reached 650 using the flamethrowers (Biddle, 2006). Grenades It was in 1044 when grenades were first used in China; soldiers of China put some gunpowder inside some metal containers. Meanwhile, in 1688, the Glorious Revolution marked the use of the word “grenade” which pertains to those ball-sized spheres with gunpowder inside. Those were used in the Battles of Glen Shiel and Killiecrankie.

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But those grenades turned out to be ineffective and they did see the use of grenades during wars (Graham, 2006). During World War I, an array of grenade models sprung up.

The Mill Bomb

The Mill Bomb, designed by William Mills in 1915, was made of canisters filled with explosives with pins to signal its explosion. The bomb was used by the British army and was originally named as “No. 5” weighed 1. 25 lb. The Mill Bomb’s exterior was sort of a saw so as when it explode it would turn into fragments, thus also termed as “fragmentation bomb.

” The “pin-and-pineapple” design of modern day grenades was adopted from Mills bombs (Duffy, 2004). Also a kind of grenade used during World War I was the Jam pot grenade. “Jam pot grenade” was coined by Canadian and British army to refer grenade which was home made.

Jam pot grenades

More so, grenades made out of tin cans were also called "Jam pot grenades." (Duffy, 2006). In 1908, Jam pot grenades were used by the British army. The grenade would explode if it was thrown with a great impact. So, if it landed into a muddy place, the grenade would not explode. The disadvantage was that the opponents might even throw it back to you (Pope, 1995). It was in 1914 when the machine gun was used during the World War I. It is usually used with a flat tripod and would need four to six persons to operate it. The machine gun could fire around 400 to 600 caliber rounds per minute (Biddle, 2006).

The machine guns

Unfortunately, these machine guns easily overheat and would not function well without the help of “cooling mechanisms. ” Those “cooling mechanism” may either be cool water or cool air. For the cool water, there are water jackets that are provided which has one gallon of liquid. While for the cool air, there air vents that could be found in the machine guns (Biddle, 2006). But then these “cooling mechanisms” did not still guarantee that the machine guns would function well during its use most especially in situation wherein there are hot conditions or the guns would be used by operators not used of operating it.

Hiram Maxim

It was Hiram Maxim, in 1884, who invented the machine guns and first offered it to the British. But the British army turned down his offer. The British army reasoned out that the machine guns would be apt for warfare (Duffy, 2004) The German army then adopted Maxim’s invention seeing the potential of the machine gun. They came up with a machine gun called “Maschinengewehr 08” or MG08. It became the German army’s standard machine gun during World War I. MG08 came up with a string of variations. Like Maxim’s machine gun, it also used “cooling mechanisms” to avoid over-heating (Duffy, 2004).