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[Illustration: Oil-tempering the lining of a Big Gun (See page 76)]
INVENTIONS OF THE GREAT WAR
by
A. RUSSELL BOND
Managing Editor of "Scientific American,"
Author of "On the Battle-Front of Engineering," etc.
With Many Illustrations
[Illustration]
New York
The Century Co.
1919
Copyright, 1918, 1919, by
The Century Co.
Published, June, 1919
PREFACE
The great World War was more than two-thirds over when America entered
the struggle, and yet in a sense this country was in the war from
its very beginning. Three great inventions controlled the character
of the fighting and made it different from any other the world has
ever seen. These three inventions were American. The submarine was
our invention; it carried the war into the sea. The airplane was an
American invention; it carried the war into the sky. We invented the
machine-gun; it drove the war into the ground.
It is not my purpose to boast of American genius but, rather, to show
that we entered the war with heavy responsibilities. The inventions we
had given to the world had been developed marvelously in other lands.
Furthermore they were in the hands of a determined and unscrupulous
foe, and we found before us the task of overcoming the very machines
that we had created. Yankee ingenuity was faced with a real test.
The only way of overcoming the airplane was to build more and better
machines than the enemy possessed. This we tried to do, but first
we had to be taught by our allies the latest refinements of this
machine, and the war was over before we had more than started our
aërial program. The machine-gun and its accessory, barbed wire (also
an American invention), were overcome by the tank; and we may find
what little comfort we can in the fact that its invention was inspired
by the sight of an American farm tractor. But the tank was a British
creation and was undoubtedly the most important invention of the war.
On the sea we were faced with a most baffling problem. The U-boat
could not be coped with by the building of swarms of submarines. The
essential here was a means of locating the enemy and destroying him
even while he lurked under the surface. Two American inventions, the
hydrophone and the depth bomb, made the lot of the U-boat decidedly
unenviable and they hastened if they did not actually end German
frightfulness on the sea.
But these were by no means the only inventions of the war. Great
Britain showed wonderful ingenuity and resourcefulness in many
directions; France did marvels with the airplane and showed great
cleverness in her development of the tank and there was a host of
minor inventions to her credit; while Italy showed marked skill in the
creation of large airplanes and small seacraft.
The Central Powers, on the other hand, were less originative but showed
marked resourcefulness in developing the inventions of others. Forts
were made valueless by the large portable Austrian guns. The long range
gun that shelled Paris was a sensational achievement, but it cannot be
called a great invention because it was of little military value. The
great German Zeppelins were far from a success because they depended
for their buoyancy on a highly inflammable gas. It is interesting to
note that while the Germans were acknowledging the failure of their
dirigibles the British were launching an airship program, and here in
America we had found an economical way of producing a non-inflammable
balloon gas which promises a great future for aërial navigation.
The most important German contribution to the war--it cannot be
classed as an invention--was poison gas, and it was not long ere they
regretted this infraction of the rules of civilized warfare adopted at
the Hague Conference; for the Allies soon gave them a big dose of their
own medicine and before the war was over, fairly deluged them with
lethal gases of every variety.
Many inventions of our own and of our allies were not fully developed
when the war ended, and there were some which, although primarily
intended for purposes of war, will be most serviceable in time of
peace. For this war was not one of mere destruction. It set men to
thinking as they had never thought before. It intensified their
inventive faculties, and as a result, the world is richer in many ways.
Lessons of thrift and economy have been taught us. Manufacturers have
learned the value of standardization. The business man has gained an
appreciation of scientific research.
The whole story is too big to be contained within the covers of a
single book, but I have selected the more important and interesting
inventions and have endeavored to describe them in simple language for
the benefit of the reader who is not technically trained.
A. RUSSELL BOND
New York, May, 1919
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE WAR IN AND UNDER THE GROUND 3
II HAND-GRENADES AND TRENCH MORTARS 20
III GUNS THAT FIRE THEMSELVES 41
IV GUNS AND SUPER-GUNS 62
V THE BATTLE OF THE CHEMISTS 85
VI TANKS 107
VII THE WAR IN THE AIR 123
VIII SHIPS THAT SAIL THE SKIES 148
IX GETTING THE RANGE 169
X TALKING IN THE SKY 184
XI WARRIORS OF THE PAINT-BRUSH 209
XII SUBMARINES 232
XIII GETTING THE BEST OF THE U-BOAT 253
XIV "DEVIL'S EGGS" 276
XV SURFACE BOATS 298
XVI RECLAIMING THE VICTIMS OF THE SUBMARINES 310
INDEX 339
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Oil-tempering the lining of a big gun _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
Lines of zig-zag trenches as viewed from an aëroplane 8
French sappers using stethoscopes to detect the mining
operations of the enemy 9
A 3-inch Stokes mortar and two of its shells 36
Dropping a shell into a 6-inch trench mortar 36
The Maxim machine-gun operated by the energy of the recoil 37
Colt machine-gun partly broken away to show the operating
mechanism 37
The Lewis gun which produces its own cooling current 44
The Benèt-Mercié gun operated by gas 44
Browning machine-gun, weighing 34-1/2 pounds 45
Browning machine-rifle, weight only 15 pounds 45
Lewis machine-guns in action at the front 52
An elaborate German machine-gun fort 53
Comparative diagram of the path of a projectile from the German
super-gun 60
One of our 16-inch coast defence guns on a disappearing mount 61
Height of gun as compared with the New York City Hall 61
The 121-mile gun designed by American ordnance officer 68
American 16-inch rifle on a railway mount 69
A long-distance sub-calibered French gun on a railway mount 76
Inside of a shrapnel shell and details of the fuse cap 77
Search-light shell and one of its candles 77
Putting on the gas-masks to meet a gas cloud attack 84
Even the horses had to be masked 85
Portable flame-throwing apparatus 85
Liquid fire streaming from fixed flame-throwing apparatus 92
Cleaning up a dugout with the "fire-broom" 93
British tank climbing out of a trench at Cambrai 112
Even trees were no barrier to the British tank 113
The German tank was very heavy and cumbersome 113
The speedy British "Whippet" tank that can travel at a speed of
twelve miles per hour 120
The French high-speed "baby" tank 120
Section through our Mark VIII tank showing the layout of the
interior 121
A Handley-Page bombing plane with one of its wings folded
back 128
How an object dropped from the Woolworth Building would
increase its speed in falling 129
Machine-gun mounted to fire over the blades of the propeller 136
Mechanism for firing between the blades of the propeller 136
It would take a hundred horses to supply the power for a small
airplane 137
The flying-tank 144
An N-C (Navy-Curtiss) seaplane of the type that made the first
flight across the Atlantic 145
A big German Zeppelin that was forced to come down on French
soil 148
Observation car lowered from a Zeppelin sailing above the
clouds 149
Giant British dirigible built along the lines of a Zeppelin 156
One of the engine cars or "power eggs" of a British dirigible 156
Crew of the C-5 (American coastal dirigible) starting for
Newfoundland to make a transatlantic flight 157
The curious tail of a kite balloon 160
Observers in the basket of an observation balloon 160
Enormous range-finders mounted on a gun turret of an American
warship 161
British anti-aircraft section getting the range of an enemy
aviator 176
A British aviator making observations over the German lines 177
Radio headgear of an airman 192
Carrying on conversation by radio with an aviator miles away 192
Long distance radio apparatus at the Arlington (Va.) station 193
A giant gun concealed among trees behind the French lines 212
Observing the enemy from a papier-mâché replica of a dead horse 213
Camouflaged headquarters of the American 26th Division in
France 220
A camouflaged ship in the Hudson River on Victory Day 221
Complex mass of wheels and dials inside a German submarine 240
Surrendered German submarines, showing the net cutters at the
bow 241
Forward end of a U-boat 256
A depth bomb mortar and a set of "ash cans" at the stern of
an American destroyer 257
A depth bomb mortar in action and a depth bomb snapped as it
is being hurled through the air 260
Airplane stunning a U-boat with a depth bomb 261
The false hatch of a mystery ship 268
The same hatch opened to disclose the 3-inch gun and crew 268
A French hydrophone installation with which the presence of
submarines was detected 269
Section of a captured mine-laying U-boat 272
A paravane hauled up with a shark caught in its jaws 273
A Dutch mine-sweeper engaged in clearing the North Sea of
German mines 288
Hooking up enemy anchored mines 289
An Italian "sea tank" climbing over a harbor boom 300
Deck of a British aircraft mothership or "hush ship" 301
Electrically propelled boat or surface torpedo, attacking a
warship 304
Hauling a seaplane up on a barge so that it may be towed 305
Climbing into an armored diving suit 320
Lowering an armored diver into the water 320
A diver's sea sled ready to be towed along the bed of the sea 321
The sea sled on land showing the forward horizontal and after
vertical rudders 321
The diving sphere built for deep sea salvage operations 324
The pneumatic breakwater 325
INVENTIONS
OF THE GREAT WAR
CHAPTER I
THE WAR IN AND UNDER THE GROUND
For years the Germans had been preparing for war. The whole world
knew this, but it had no idea how elaborate were their preparations,
and how these were carried out to the very minutest detail. When the
call to arms was sounded, it was a matter of only a few hours before a
vast army had been assembled--fully armed, completely equipped, ready
to swarm over the frontiers into Belgium and thence into France. It
took much longer for the French to raise their armies of defense, and
still longer for the British to furnish France with any adequate help.
Despite the heroic resistance of Belgium, the Entente Allies were
unprepared to stem the tide of German soldiers who poured into the
northern part of France.
So easy did the march to Paris seem, that the Germans grew careless
in their advance and then suddenly they met with a reverse that sent
them back in full retreat. However, the military authorities of Germany
had studied not only how to attack but also how to retreat and how
to stand on the defensive. In this, as in every other phase of the
conflict, they were far in advance of the rest of the world, and after
their defeat in the First Battle of the Marne, they retired to a strong
position and hastily prepared to stand on the defensive. When the
Allies tried to drive them farther back, they found that the German
army had simply sunk into the ground. The war of manoeuver had given
way to trench warfare, which lasted through long, tedious months nearly
to the end of the great conflict.
The Germans found it necessary to make the stand because the Russians
were putting up such a strong fight on Germany's eastern frontier.
Men had to be withdrawn from the western front to stem the Russian
tide, which meant that the western armies of the kaiser had to cease
their offensive activities for the time being. The delay was fatal
to the Germans, for they had opposed to them not only brave men but
intelligent men who were quick to learn. And when the Germans were
ready to resume operations in the West, they found that the Allies also
had sunk into the ground and had learned all their tricks of trench
warfare, adding a number of new ones of their own.
The whole character of the war was changed. The opposing forces were
dead-locked and neither could break through the other's lines. The idea
of digging into the ground did not originate with this war, but never
before had it been carried out on so extensive a scale. The inventive
faculties of both sides were vainly exercised to find some way of
breaking the dead-lock. Hundreds of new inventions were developed. The
history of war from the days of the ancient Romans up to the present
time was searched for some means of breaking down the opposing lines.
However, the dead-lock was not broken until a special machine had been
invented, a traveling fort. But the story of that machine is told in
another chapter.
At the outset the Allies dug very shallow ditches, such as had been
used in previous wars. When it was found that these burrows would have
to be occupied for weeks and months, the French and British imitated
the Germans and dug their trenches so deep that men could walk through
them freely, without danger of exposing their heads above ground; and
as the ditches grew deeper, they had to be provided with a firing-step
on which the riflemen could stand to fire over the top of the trenches.
The trenches were zig-zagged so that they could not be flanked,
otherwise they would have made dangerous traps for the defenders; for
had the enemy gained one end of the trench, he could have fired down
the full length of it, killing or wounding every man it contained. But
zig-zagging made it necessary to capture each turn separately. There
were lines upon lines of these trenches. Ordinarily there were but
three lines, several hundred feet apart, with communicating trenches
connecting them, and then several kilometers[1] farther back were
reserve trenches, also connected by communicating trenches with the
front lines.
[1] A kilometer is, roughly, six tenths of a mile; or six
miles would equal ten kilometers.
Men did not dare to show themselves out in the open near the
battle-front for a mile or more behind the front-line trenches, for the
enemy's sharp-shooters were always on the watch for a target. The men
had to stay in the trenches day and night for two or more weeks at a
time, and sleeping-accommodations of a very rough sort were provided
for them in dugouts which opened into the trenches. The dugouts of the
Allies were comparatively crude affairs, but the Germans spent a great
deal of time upon their burrows.
UNDERGROUND VILLAGES
When the French first swept the Germans back out of their trenches
along the Aisne, they were astonished to find how elaborate were
these underground dwellings. They found that the ground was literally
honeycombed with rooms and passageways. Often the dugouts were two
stories in depth and extended as much as sixty feet below the level
of the ground. In fact, all along this part of the front, the Germans
had a continuous underground village in which thousands of men were
maintained. The officers' quarters were particularly well fitted up,
and every attention was given to the comfort of their occupants. There
were steel door-mats at the entrances of the quarters. The walls were
boarded and even papered. The bedrooms were fitted with spring beds,
chiffoniers, and wash-stands, and all the rooms were lighted with
electric lamps. There were spacious quarters for the men, with regular
underground mess halls and elaborate kitchens. There were power-plants
to furnish steam for the operation of pumps and for the lighting-plants
and for other purposes.
[Illustration: (C) Underwood & Underwood
Lines of Zig-Zag Trenches as viewed from an Airplane]
There was a chalk formation here in which were many large natural
caves. One enormous cave was said to have held thirty thousand
soldiers, and in this section the Germans kept large reserve forces. By
digging far into the ground, the German troops secured protection from
shell-fire; in fact, the horrible noise of battle was heard only as a
murmur, down in these depths. With characteristic thoroughness, the
Germans built their trench system for a long stay; while the Allies,
on the other hand, looked upon _their_ trenches as merely temporary
quarters, which would hold the enemy at bay until they could build up
armies large enough to drive the invaders out of the country. The
construction of the trenches along some parts of the battle-line was
particularly difficult, because of the problem of drainage. This was
especially true in Flanders, where the trenches in many cases were
below water-level, and elaborate pumping-systems had to be installed
to keep them dry. Some of them were concrete-lined to make them
waterproof. In the early stages of the war, before the trenches were
drained, the men had to stand in water for a good part of the time,
and the only way they could get about at all in the miry trenches was
by having "duck-boards" in them. Duck-boards are sections of wooden
sidewalk such as we find in small villages in this country, consisting
of a couple of rails on which crosspieces of wood are nailed. These
duck-boards fairly floated in the mud.
[Illustration: Courtesy of "Scientific American"
French Sappers using Stethoscopes to detect the Mining Operations of
the Enemy]
Some of the trenches were provided with barbed wire barriers or gates
calculated to halt a raiding-party if it succeeded in getting into the
trench. These gates were swung up out of the way, but when lowered they
were kept closed with a rather complicated system of bolts which the
enemy would be unable to unfasten without some delay; and while he
was struggling to get through the gate, he would be a target for the
bullets of the defenders.
HIDING RAILROADS IN DITCHES
Because of the elaborate system of trenches, and the distance from the
front line to that part of the country where it was safe to operate
in the open, it was necessary to build railways which would travel
through tunnels and communicating trenches to the front lines. These
were narrow-gage railroads and a special standard form of track section
was designed, which was entirely of metal, something like the track
sections of toy railroads. The tracks were very quickly laid and taken
up at need. The locomotives had to be silent and smokeless and so a
special form of gasolene locomotive was invented to haul the little
cars along these miniature railroads to the front lines. Usually the
trench railroads did not come to the very front of the battle-line, but
their principal use was to carry shell to the guns which were located
in concealed positions. Railroad or tramway trenches could not be
sharply zig-zagged but had to have easy curves, which were apt to be
recognized by enemy airplanes, and so they were often concealed under
a covering of wire strewn with leaves.
PERISCOPES AND "SNIPERSCOPES"
But while the armies were buried underground, it was necessary for them
to keep their eyes upon each other so that each might be ready for
any sudden onslaught of the other. Snipers were always ready to fire
at any head that showed itself above the parapet of the trench and so
the soldiers had to steal an idea from the submarines and build them
periscopes with which they could look over the top of their trenches
without exposing themselves. A trench periscope was a very simple
affair, consisting of a tube with two mirrors, one at the top and one
at the bottom, set at such an angle that a person looking into the side
of the tube at the bottom could see out of the opposite side of the
tube at the top.
Observation posts were established wherever there was a slight rise in
the ground. Sometimes these posts were placed far in advance of the
trenches and sometimes even behind the trenches where it was possible
to obtain a good view of the opposing lines. Sometimes a tunnel would
be dug forward, leading to an outlet close to the enemy's lines, and
here an observer would take his position at night to spy with his ears
upon the activities of the enemy. Observers who watched the enemy by
day would often not dare to use periscopes, which might be seen by the
enemy and draw a concentrated fire of rifles and even shell. So that
every manner of concealment was employed to make the observation posts
invisible and to have them blend with their surroundings. Observers
even wore veils so that the white of their skin would not betray them.
[Illustration: Redrawn from Military Map Reading by permission of E. C.
McKay
FIG. 1. A "sniperscope" with which a sharpshooter could take aim
without showing his head above the parapet]
Snipers were equally ingenious in concealing themselves. They
frequently used rifles which were connected with a dummy butt and
had a periscope sighting-attachment. This attachment was called a
"sniperscope." The rifle-barrel could be pushed through a loophole in
the parapet and the sniper standing safely below the parapet could hold
the dummy butt to his shoulder and aim his rifle with perfect accuracy
by means of the periscope. It was next to impossible to locate a sniper
hidden in this way. One method of doing it was to examine rubbish, tin
cans, or any object that had been penetrated by a bullet and note the
direction taken by the bullet. This would give a line leading toward
the source of the shot, and when a number of such lines were traced,
they would cross at a spot where the sniper or his gun was stationed,
and a few shell would put the man out of business. Dummy heads of
papier mâché were sometimes stuck above the parapet to draw the fire of
enemy snipers and the bullet-holes which quickly appeared in them were
studied to discover the location of the snipers.
[Illustration: Redrawn from Military Map Reading by permission of E. C.
McKay
FIG. 2. A fixed rifle stand arranged to be fired after dark]
Sometimes fixed rifles were used. These were set on stands so that
they could be very accurately trained upon some important enemy post.
Then they could be fired in the dark, without aiming, to disturb night
operations of the enemy. Often a brace of rifles, as many as six, would
be coupled up to be fired simultaneously, and by operating a single
lever each gun would throw out the empty cartridge shell and bring a
fresh one into position.
STEEL BRIER PATCHES
The most important defense of a trench system consisted in the barbed
wire entanglements placed before it. Barbed wire, by the way, is
an American invention, but it was originally intended for the very
peaceful purpose for keeping cattle within bounds. Long ago it was
used in war, but never to the extent to which it was employed in this
world struggle. The entanglements were usually set up at night and were
merely fences consisting of stout posts driven into the ground and
strung with barbed wire running in all directions, so as to make an
impenetrable tangle. Where it was possible to prepare the entanglements
without disturbance and the position was an important one, the mass of
barbed wire often extended for a hundred yards or more in depth. Just
beyond the entanglements trip-wires were sometimes used. A trip-wire
was a slack wire which was laid on the ground. Before being laid, the
wire was tightly coiled so that it would not lie flat, but would catch
the feet of raiders and trip them up. Each side had "gates" in the
line through which this wire could quickly be removed to let its own
raiding-parties through. Sometimes raiders used tunnels, with outlets
beyond the barbed wire, but they had to cut their way through the metal
brier patches of their opponents.
Early in the war, various schemes were devised for destroying the
entanglements. There were bombs in the form of a rod about twelve
feet long, which could be pushed under the wire and upon exploding
would tear it apart. Another scheme was to fire a projectile formed
like a grapnel. The projectile was attached to the end of a cable
and was fired from a small gun in the same way that life-lines are
thrown out to wrecks near shore. Then the cable would be wound up on a
winch and the grapnel hooks would tear the wire from its fastenings.
Such schemes, however, did not prove very practicable, and it was
eventually found that a much better way of destroying barbed wire was
to bombard it with high-explosive shell, which would literally blow the
wire apart. But it required a great deal of shelling to destroy these
entanglements, and it was really not until the tank was invented that
such obstructions could be flattened out so that they formed no bar to
the passage of the soldiers.
The Germans not only used fixed entanglements, but they had large
standard sections of barbed wire arranged in the form of big
cylindrical frames which would be carried easily by a couple of men and
could be placed in position at a moment's notice to close a gap in the
line or even to build up new lines of wire obstruction.
MINES AND COUNTER-MINES
In the earlier stages of the war it proved so impossible to capture a
trench when it was well defended by machine-guns that efforts were made
to blow up the enemy by means of mines. Tunnels were dug reaching out
under the enemy's lines and large quantities of explosives were stored
in them. At the moment when it was intended to make an assault, there
would be a heavy cannonading to disconcert the enemy, and then the mine
would be touched off. In the demoralizing confusion that resulted, the
storming-party would sweep over the enemy. Such mines were tried on
both sides, and the only protection against them was to out-guess the
other side and build counter-mines.
If it were suspected, from the importance of a certain position and the
nature of the ground, that the enemy would probably try to undermine
it, the defenders would dig tunnels of their own toward the enemy at a
safe distance beyond their own lines and establish listeners there to
see if they could hear the mining-operations of their opponents. Very
delicate microphones were used, which the listeners would place on the
ground or against the walls of their tunnel. Then they would listen
for the faintest sound of digging, just as a doctor listens through
a stethoscope to the beating of a patient's heart or the rush of air
through his lungs. When these listening-instruments picked up the noise
of digging, the general direction of the digging could be followed
out by placing the instrument at different positions and noting where
the noise was loudest. Then a counter-mine would be extended in that
direction, far enough down to pass under the enemy's tunnel, and at the
right moment, a charge of TNT (trinitrotoluol) would be exploded, which
would destroy the enemy's sappers and put an end to their ambitious
plans.
A very interesting case of mining was furnished by the British when
they blew up the important post of Messines Ridge. This was strongly
held by the Germans and the only way of dislodging the enemy was to
blow off the top of the ridge. Before work was started, geologists
were called upon to determine whether or not the ground were suitable
for mining-operations. They picked out a spot where the digging was
good from the British side, but where, if counter-mines were attempted
from the German side, quicksands would be encountered and tunneling
of any sort would be difficult. The British sappers could, therefore,
proceed with comparative safety. The Germans suspected that something
of the sort was being undertaken, but they found it very difficult to
dig counter-mines. However, one day their suspicions were confirmed,
when the whole top of the hill was blown off, with a big loss of German
lives. In the assault that followed the British captured the position
and it was annexed to the British lines.