“What I want to focus on here is the disconnect between the popular conception of how trench warfare actually worked and the actual conditions that produced trench warfare. This week, we’re going to look at the problem: both the popular perception of what the problem is and what the actual problem of trench warfare is. This is both to set the groundwork for the next post, which will discuss the ways that this stalemate was and wasn’t broken, but it also serves to handily dismiss some of the ‘easy’ solutions that are often offered which don’t solve the actual problem but merely solve the imaginary one.”
Here's my question: I'm wondering why the shells were made to explode directly in front of the advancing troops. There were no targets there, except for barbed wire. Did the exploding shells conceal the advancing troops? But then surely they should've used smoke grenades. If the point was to destroy the barbed wire, they could've done that ahead of time without the risk of killing their own soldiers with their own artillery. So I am as confused as ever.
> But anyone fool enough to be standing out during a barrage would be killed, so your artillery could force enemy gunners to hide in deep dugouts designed to resist artillery. Machine gunners hiding in deep dugouts can’t fire their machine guns at your approaching infantry.
> And now we have the ‘race to the parapet.’ The attacker opens with a barrage, which has two purposes: silence enemy artillery (which could utterly ruin the attack if it isn’t knocked out) and second to disable the machine guns: knock out some directly, force the crews of the rest to flee underground. But attacking infantry can’t occupy a position its own artillery is shelling, so there is some gap between when the shells stop and when the attack arrives. In that gap, the defender is going to rush to set up their machine guns while the attacker rushes to get to the lip of the trench:first one to get into position is going to inflict a terrible slaughter on the other.
> But anyone fool enough to be standing out during a barrage would be killed
I already read this before I asked.
Where was the artillery aimed? Was it aimed over the entire area between the advancing line of troops and the opposing trench? If so, then of course any opposing soldier would die if they got out of hiding; but then the shells could've been aimed only at the opposing trench, without needing to cover the area directly in front of the advancing soldiers. If on the other hand, the shells were aimed only directly in front of the advancing soldiers, and not at the opposing trench as well, then the opposing soldiers would've been in no risk of getting hit by artillery fire. Overall, it seems that the bombardment could've been aimed only at the opposing trench, which might've given the advancing soldiers enough cover to reach the opposing trench alive. But apparently, that's not how a creeping barrage worked.
The creeping barrage would hide the advancing soldiers behind dust clouds. The closer to the troops the better (harder to get sight lines on them unless you were literally on top of them).
Enemy positions were not always fully known and mapped out, so firing "just" at the opposing trench would be hard to plan. There could be advance defensive positions placed further forward as well.
There were multiple layers of trenches which an advance could be expected to push through.
The shape and pace of the creeping barrage was thought to help coordinate the pace of the advance.
There were drawbacks, as of course many shells would hit empty land and so be wasteful of artillery, and creeping barrages did fall out of favour. Although not simply for this reason: later developments made it easier for infantry to call artillery down on specific positions as needed, and also new infiltrations tactics made coordinating with creeping barrages impossible.
Well, my wild guess as someone that doesn't know much about WW1 is that you might be overestimating how precise artillery was and how large the distance between opposing trenches ?
So "the shells could've been aimed only at the opposing trench, without needing to cover the area directly in front of the advancing soldiers." is not possible because it's the same area ?
Also, I seem to remember something about it not just being two trenches, but several layers of trenches, and also various levels of enemy artillery, so each barrage would have wanted to cover the various layers of enemy defenses, but with different timings, hence "rolling barrage" ??
A brief summary:
“What I want to focus on here is the disconnect between the popular conception of how trench warfare actually worked and the actual conditions that produced trench warfare. This week, we’re going to look at the problem: both the popular perception of what the problem is and what the actual problem of trench warfare is. This is both to set the groundwork for the next post, which will discuss the ways that this stalemate was and wasn’t broken, but it also serves to handily dismiss some of the ‘easy’ solutions that are often offered which don’t solve the actual problem but merely solve the imaginary one.”