The Dullest Terror of World War One
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- Опубліковано 6 лип 2024
- There are many terrors of the First World War. Not all of them are so apparent as mud, gas, and shrapnel.
~~Sources & Further Reading On This Topic~~
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~~Timestamps~~
The Best Reenactment 00:00
Overcrowding in Combat 05:40
Traffic Behind the Front Line 17:51
Conclusion 22:41
Actually, only the German trenches where claustrophobic, the French trenches where pierreophobic.
Hon hon I see what you did there
@@jaysonlima7196 Very clever.
Take your medal and get out!
@@davidturner7590can you explain plz
Omg lololol 😂😂😂😂😂
WW1 veterans: it was the worst þing any man could ever possibly experience
History buffs: i wanna try
when you take away the death and severe injury, it becomes a lot more of an interesting experience
@@WoodlandFops Death, severe injury, trench foot, dysentery, influenza...
Just casually uses thorn, and no one notices XD
@@moritamikamikara3879I noticed. If I noticed, many others did.
@@WoodlandFops like how paintball is a fun activity but actual war is one of the worst things mankind can experience. When you take out the fear of death and the physical trauma, it's fun
I was doing some research on my Great Grandfather on how he won his Military Medal at Passendale, which he won taking out a German Machine gun nest. But it was fascinating reading the report, as they weren't fighting in proper trenches they were fighting from interconnected shell holes. The way you describe how tentative the situation was with the bridgehead and with the wave after wave echos what happened here his bridgade converged to capture this village but to get there they had to get passed 4 pepper pot pillboxes. The first wave had failed, my great grandfather was in the second and due to the intencity of fire more and more men were moving towards the same shellhole trenches. A small team was organised with my great grandfather as the leader and they were able to take one of the Pillboxes, but were unable to make anymore progress. So they just had to hunker down, as other troops tried, the report becomes a bit of a mess as everyone is going to the same spot as it's the only safe bit, and nodoby for a bit knows what to do, until a group moves up to another group of shellholes and starts digging in. Later the next day he and the rest of his regiment (I believe it was that size) went back. It's not really what you expect, it was not like a movie, his actions were not the conclusion trying to take the other pillboxes and failure were. He didn't go on fighting to the end of the Battle, they just went back and where replaced by others. On the day he won his medal his brigade lost 53 men, 383 wounded and 146 missings. A trench map a few weeks later shows the land back in germans hands. Seeing some of the pictures of the area during the time it's like an alien planet. The pillbox he took is no longer there, a second hand car dealership is there now.
That's a fantastic story to be able to know about your own family's history!
Good spelling
Around about 1917 it became a conscious tactical decision to use connected trench holes as the very front line on both sides. They would be very lightly held to reduce casualties in defending initial attacks and against artillery and covered in ground sheets to defend from aerial view. The majority of the infantry would be in trenches further back with designed strong points and defense in depth. I suggest watching BBCs the Somme: the other side of the wire, to see how this came about. My great uncle was shot inmthe head at passchendaele.
Yea I’ve realized it really wasn’t like Hollywood portrays. Lines of men blindly marching abreast through artillery and machine guns. There were certainly hordes of men crossing no man’s land, but they advanced in disciplined waves that moved like something we expect to see in ww2 combat. These people weren’t idiots, they just had to contend with unforeseen horrors.
@@sealboy1211 yes also the 'walking across no mans land' in the attack thing is massively exaggerated. They sometimes did it if they had 1000 metres plus to cover and areas of dead ground out of necessity of avoiding exhaustion but they rushed enemies front lines. As you say, they wernt stupid. Theres an amazing bit of footage that people rarely see from the somme attack, taken from a distance you can see rows of men attacking in the distance in a open formation, jogging along
My grandfather was in the artillery; he did not spend much time in narrow trenches. He was wounded with shrapnel. After treatment he was sent back to the front. Next, he was gassed. After treatment, he was unfit for front line service, so he spent the rest of the war in field kitchens. He died in his fifties, years before I was born. It was probably the gas, not the shrapnel, that dramatically shortened his life.
My god, the sounds of the men shouting to their men, organising them, as explosions and shots ring out constantly is incredibly immersive. It feels like I'm watching a ww1 film
The footage looks great Brandon. Might have to look into Newville more.
It's SO GOOD. It's run by the Great War Association.
You should and you should totally visit some of the surrounding areas. I actually live about 40 mins from this (and didn’t even know it existed). But the whole area is awesome to visit
One time, Verdun had a lobby with 128 players in it. It was pretty gruesome and immersive I must say. Seems like the gameplay you showed was maybe with 32 or even 64 players
I was in the middle of typing a comment on those games lol definitely know what the jam pack is can be like
HAD??
Bruh, Vedun STILL gets lots of players during events and it is indeed immersive. I play as flamethrower mostly, and (even though the gun itself isn't very good) it's amazing being the guy able to hold a dozen guys back by just holding it in a corner
Let's give Tannenberg some love guys. Very underrated!
@@BoxofficeForney6969
True. Isonzo as well!
My Great Grandfather, Thomas Smyth served in the great war. 1st battalion Connaught Rangers, he had a bayonet wound across his hand and shrapnel in his legs, which unfortunately led to his death in the late 50s. he served in Mesopotamia and Palestine. people often forget how brutal conditions were there aswell. Flies, Heat, Sand and Cold Nights. and when his battalion landed to relieve the british garrison at Kut, it was pouring rain for days and they had only tropical uniforms....
very proud of him.
Thanks for joining us, you were a great asset to our platoon! Hopefully your travels don't keep you away, and we'll see you again soon.
I see people mentioning their relatives so why not?
Great Grandfather served as part of the Royal Irish Dragoon Guards and was friends with the guy who fired the first british shot in the trenches. He was discharged from the military towards the end of 1914 when an explosion damaged his eye and left him temporarily blinded. During his stay at the hospital, that's where he found his future wife.
In WW2, he attempted to join the BEF but was refused due to the eye injury. That's basically all I know about him, I've got replica medals of the ones he recieved, such as the 1914 service medal and the overall service medal for the war. The originals were lost a long time ago.
My grandad on the same side served in the RAF in the 60s. In WW2, he was part of the local community that looked after the white horses to ensure they weren't destroyed by the war.
And, while we're not certain, there's possibly an american-irish family related on my dad's side (via the Irish emigrations in the 1800s) who had a US Marine that was one of the first onto Okinawa in WW2, passed away around 2010.
Now obviously a reenactment is never going to be the same as the real thing. I mean, the lack of fear for your life is the most obvious and immediate difference. Even with the real barbwire, you know you're safe. You know nothing serious is gonna happen to you, save for some huge accident. But reenactments are still important. Not just for personal understanding, but for understanding in general. Some things you might look back at and wonder "this makes no sense" or ask yourself "why did they do things this way?" and the answer doesn't really make itself apparent until someone tries it out for themselves.
Probably my favorite example of this is medieval armor. I can't remember exactly what it was, but there was some sort of fabric jammed into some armor gaps and people didn't know what it was for. It wasn't part of the actual armor, it was something knights did. Until someone realized you get some insane chafing while on horse back so that piece of fabric was probably used for padding.
And the lack of mud. The Western Front in WW1 is primarily defined as a sea of mud and dead trees...
8:18 the Og all quiet in the western front has a pretty good battle scene that i think demonstrates your point.
I need to watch that one still!
@@BrandonF Have you seen the 1979 version of AQOTWF and if so what do you think about it?
Great seeing you there, hope you come again next year!
wow, that event looks amazing! Makes me think about what the guys went through during the war and how insane it all was.
Thanks for this, it reminds me of Experiential Archeology research which is my home turf, you've articulated its ability to help us understand our sources so well. I'm going to share this with my students!
That's great to hear! Thank you.
One of my favourite books is about a war that never happened - Ralph Peters' Red Army. Traffic control is a major obstacle for the Soviets, as they have to move vehicles by the thousands through one of the most crowded environments on Earth, West Germany. I'd dearly love to see someone who knows the topic take a deep dive into this book, but so far it remains fairly obscure.
You are the person you are asking for. Enlighten us.
Ya know im always fascinated by stories like this, about the logistical nightmares and enviornmental hazards of the first world war. It really makes me think that the hardest part about recruiting new soldiers wasn't convincing them to die nobely for their country, but keeping them from realizing they might drown in the mud for nothing at all.
Its easy to die for a cause, but very few people are willing to suffer for a cause. Especially when that suffering is in terrified boredom and diease that slowly gnaws at you.
You're one of the Greatest storytellers on UA-cam. You're amazing and you're videos are top notch.
Fantastic video all around! Like you said the reenactments make it easy to deal with (specifically cassualties); during the dusk attack I had to change my position while "dead" because there were so many people almost of not actually stepping on me and it really opened my eyes as to what would have been the reality of the situation.
P.S thanks for the screen time 😂 0:31
Sry if its not you but guy with the cigarette is for sure stealing the show
This video could not have been more timely. Thank you very much
Heard a "PPCLI" off in the background, very nice
the trenches in the reenactment sight actually look rather wide compared to what I personally have experience with
The bloke smoking the cigarette at the start gets it
Wow, that re-enactment looks like fun! I wish there were WW1 re-enactments going on 40 years ago, I'd have been there in a heartbeat! But I settled on bullseye matches with my 1903 Springfield.
(It was supposed to be a shootin' match but let me tell you, it was an all-day party in disguise! Good times!)
Full disclosure, it IS a Model 1903 but built by Rock Island Arsenal in 1904 as a rod bayonet rifle in 30-03, then modfied in 1908 to .30-06 and for a standard 16 inch bayonet. It's a beauty!
Great presention Brandon, as always! Time VERY well spent!
Oh, one last thing, was that biplane (looked like Fokker DVII) a radio control model, or was there a replica in the area? WW1 aviation's fascinated me for decades and when a WW1 fighter shows up it DEFINATELY gets my attention!
Great video! It's awesome seeing your quality of work get better and better each video, I can't wait to see what happens in the next few weeks/months.
This isn't really just a WW1 thing, though the scale of the problem was particularly bad in that war. We have accounts from the urban battles in Iraq where men piled up in houses/buildings when the spearhead unit was taking more time than expected to clear their objective of insurgents. And this was with disciplined, well-administered US units. One can imagine how much worse it would have been with the new Iraqi army later on as they went to retake cities like Mosul from the Daesh, let alone the urban fights of the Syrian Civil War. And of course traffic jams in the rear are a regular feature of any modern large-scale military operation, including the infamous Russian one to the northwest of Kyiv last year.
Probably the only reason we don't hear quite as much about the overcrowding of dismounted infantrymen in frontline positions in Ukraine is because persistent surveillance over the battlefield by drones has forced both sides to limit their actions to what are basically trench raids by small units, with almost opportunistic occupation of the raided position if the enemy failed to counterattack in sufficient strength.
Similar things apply going back in history. I'm pretty sure you'll find accounts of overcrowding in the Russo-Japanese War and in the Crimean War at the very least, but I'd wager you can find similar issues much earlier in sieges dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries.
I saw myself a few times in this video! Well done man!! It truly summed up the experience quite well.
Nice video! Brilliant way to work the footage from Newville into a larger educational discussion.
You should read up on Lone Pine where the Turkish soldiers had placed logs on top of the trench, when the Australians attacked they were fighting in effectively a tunnel
Yer my NEW favorite channel. I like how you not only teach us the history that is factually accurate, but you make sure to let it be known just how horrific and catastrophic the injuries are... both internally and externally. Thank you Brandon.
Thank you for the insight, truly the more I learn about the First World War the more my heart goes out to all the men who experienced that horror
I live like, twenty mins from here! Amazing
Now why are the French uniforms still that drippy?
You, Sir, are a pleasure to listen to.
I love the ways in which you continually expand the limits of what could be a 'bog standard' theme.
Man, I NEED TO PLAY ON THIS REENACTMENT.
Not to mention the mud. After watching ur video on mud I can't stop thinking how terrible mud truly is
I really love your content, it has kinda rekindled my love for military history. Thank you
I love this channel. I try to imagine the horror of it all but it is not my nightmare. Rest well to them that lived it.
Great War Militaria and GWA are my favorites...I wish I would have had an opportunity to participate over the years always something I was going to do but didn't. Was a dedicated customer of GW Militaria for many years. Truly appreciate the efforts of all to promote WWI history
I live in Cumberland county and I didn’t even know there was something like this in Newville? In that tiny ass town?! That’s insane.
Yeah, it really is in the middle of nowhere. After the event there's usually an exodus of reenactors to the local Sheetz for food because it's closest, cheapest, and easiest haha
Very interesting & enlightening video.
There are some good descriptions involving breach storming in the peninsula war that describe crowding affects.
Thank you.
Ahh, I was wondering if St. John's Road Trench (7:54) would make an appearance in the First World War photo montage. More often than not, it (or some other shot from Beaumont-Hamel) sneaks in there somewhere!
I recently worked as a guide for two Canadian battlefield memorial sites in northern France, and the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme is the genuinely horrific example of overcrowding that we talk about on our tour of the battlefield site. For the men of the 29th Division, however, it wasn't the opposing barbed wire that led to a bottleneck - it was their own, which hadn't been cut in nearly enough places. As they tried to get through, the first wave -- composed of the 86th and 87th Brigades -- were summarily mowed down by machine gun emplacements on the surrounding ridge lines.
After some poor communication and a mistaken flare, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment were ordered to the front to help, but the communication trenches were so flooded with dead, dying, and wounded that they couldn't stomach making a go of climbing over them. Instead, the decision was made to climb out of the reserve trenches and walk over top of the battlefield to reach their own front lines. Suffice to say, that didn't exactly go well either.
The site today is beautiful, and eerily peaceful. The trench lines have been impeccably preserved, but even then, and even having worked there four months, it's nearly impossible to picture what it really would have been like.
World War I might have been one of the worst times to be a soldier. Apart from the usual miseries of war, you also had to deal with the heavy rain, mud, disease, shelling and useless attacks for no gains. Very sad
Hey Brandon! Just discovered your channel with the mud video and i loved it
Great job im going for seconds now
Keep up :D
Thanks, and welcome! I mostly focus on the 18th century, but WW1 is another favourite topic of mine and I've been on a bit of a kick for it lately.
Great stuff unfortunately no constant rain & mud tho
I did an airsoft Vietnam reenactment w/end yrs ago. I was on the US side & we’d been getting our arse kicked allday. By the NVA & the hot weather.
Near the end we had to ‘hump’ to our nxt location. You could see people physically tired & fed up. When the last attack came in & the whistles started blowing. It was like a collective ‘oh sh*t, here we go again’ sigh for want of a better way of putting it. Like you i thought i wonder if jus for those few seconds was it like that.
I do not have anything relevant to add but thank you Brandon
See if you can get yourself a copy of My Story, both Flying Ace with Jack Fairfax and Trenches with Billy Stevens. Those were probably the first significant encounters with WW1 stories I ever read around 2010 or so.
We shall not forget you - or this posting.
I love this!
Great video 🙏
Im currently looking up info on one of my mom's uncles who was a field cook in the US army during ww1
Glad you ahd fun at the larp, looks amazing
The Trenches from Paths of Glory are classic.
It is much easer to see flashy marital aerobatics than a grime dirty grapple.
The Hail Mary Passes from Football (Grid Iron) are more popular than the scrums of Rugby, although even the American NFL teams are starting to see the effectiveness of the scrum.
You do a very good job of shining a light in visceral little details of warfare in different periods.
The small human experiences.
Maybe you could visit rations, food and cooks at some point?
As a question, always was curious, for this event how does "death" happen?
In a regular reenactment you have an idea of movements and back and forth, of timing and schedule, and you cn decide where and when you "die", hopefully putting on a good show (as you have put it in another vid).
For this event tho, does "death" happen? Do you fall and get brought back/revived or just leave the fiele? Or moreso, how are advances/retreats determined? How is it decided when you've made it through a position or not?
Honestly, a dissection of this specific reenactment would be cool, might also serve as effective advertising!
THIS LOOKS SOO COOL
This looks fun
This seems really cool
That looks crazy realistic
Over the top lads!
For we are all going to go to the top forever, whether we like it or not
A video about the Opium Wars could be great
Hey, love your content and your insights. If you haven't read it already i can really recommend the book "Poilu" by Louis Barthas. He was a French frontline soldier surviving the whole 4 years. It's unique because of the fact it was written by a corporal and not an officer. This guy dwelled the outposts and frontline trenches, survived major battles (Verdun, Somme,...) and escaped death multiple times. It was a fantastic read!
It would be interesting if flow on trenches was also a concern on more recent conflicts like the Iran-Iraq war. Bernard from military History visualized might be a good collab for this.
One thing I'd be really interested in a video on is the immediate aftermath of battles in WWI. We've all seen stuff like 'the Somme in 1916 vs today', but what was it like in 1917 when the frontline had moved on to the Hindenburg line, or in 1918 when the Germans and then the Brits had to fight over the same battlefield? Did grass come back, were trees growing, what happened to all the trenches and supply dumps and artillery emplacements, etc etc?
loving the ww1 vids
The first thing that infantry did after fighting their way through to the enemy trenches and displacing the defenders? They immediately fell asleep. They needed further waves because anyone still alive from the first wave was exhausted
You really inspire me to do WW1 Reenactment. I would like to reenact as the Austrians, with our good Italian friends in the Isonzo front. BUT sadly this kind of reenactment is more a cultural thing, real reenactment-battles are very rare. It's not that easy to implement it like the muzzleloader era.
What so you mean? Why is it harder? There should be more like them, definitely. Civil War reenactments are old, like I mean historically people see it as "the musket times". A good WWI reenactment might make people respect Rememberance Day a bit more, put it on YT and such.
YT'er Lindybeige did one about a winter March in the East, been awhile so forgot the specifics, includingnif WWI or II.
That, and this are the only ones I've ever seen.
@@AughtelWW1 is kind of unique in terms of the violence unleashed and the setting. Unlike say Napoleonic Wars and the US Civil War where it can be held in flat fields without modding the place too much, reenacting WW1 needs some things that may be... difficult to pull off. Like for example the propensity of mud in the trenches (it is not a complete WW1 experience without mud being everywhere and on anything, including the soldiers themselves) and very loud (over 100 db) and continuous sounds of gunfire and artillery fire. Those are the defining things about the Western Front of WW1...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 okay, yeah true. You'd need pretty much an area entirely devoted to being that, like a business. Can't just get the gang together in some field. I guess hence the private property part he was talking about, it's all clicking together now.
@@Aughtel There are few reasons why it's harder to do battle scenarios than our Napoleonic Reenactment. Ammunition is one of the huge factors. In NW, you can simply make ammo yourself, you just need blackpowder and papers. For our Werndl and Steyr M95, you have to buy specific ammunition made of brass, you can't make your own cartridges - and it's also very expensive in the long run. Also weapon law can be a downside either. Even though Austria is very liberal for an European country, you need also a specific license for bringing a gun abroad in Europe. Also called European Firearms Passport.
And there aren't as many Reenactors. The list goes on.
We have the landscape, like the Dolomiti or other places in the Italian and Slowenian border.
Gotta say how I weirdly mistook the footage for the war in Ukraine. It's crazy.
I go to the eastern front events at Newville, the place is insane!!
The reenactment may have been "logjammed," but the real thing often had help keeping the numbers down from the enemy, didn't it?
I've never done a reenactment before, a question I've always had for a reenactment is how do you know in big skirmishes like this when to "die"? Honestly, I'd be lying if the idea of barely participating and spending most of my time headfirst in the dirt like I've seen in local CW reenactments hasn't been a turn-off from doing them.
I assume its like military manoeuvre exercises in which they have umpires
I’ve always wanted to know how reenactors know if they’ve been “shot?” Like, do they use Simunition or paintballs or just nothing?
This is great! I have been following you for a long time, Brandon. I have been reenacting at Newville, PA for almost 20 years. I am on the opposite side in IR 92. What unit are you in for Great War? My unit is closer to the USMC lines there, but I am friends with a lot of the British groups and French as well.
The South Wales Borderers! We were on the far left of the Allied lines.
very nice video on a topic which is all so easy overlocked. And especially thank you for your true and careful words that re-enactment never equals "the real thing" - because the misconception that it actually DOES does much harm, because if you do not consider this fact
a) many people get a wrong feeling of history
and
b) reenactment get a realy bad reputation because rightfully historians state out that it could never profide the "full things"...
In Ukraine they use a lot of small teams to infiltrate and avoid overcrowding problems. Fewer than 10 guys backed by drones, artillery and armour.
Also, see stormtrooper tactics.
I wounder how long it took to reorganize units. so you know if Private Jones realy is missing or if he got lost from his group and united with another.
I think 1917 did a great job of showing the hustle and bustle and cramped experience of the British trenches even during a relatively calm moment on the battlefield.
7:13 This is also my favourite part about verdun (which is probably my favourite game when it comes to ww1) as I mainly play the role of a german sturmtruppen nco, especially with a good squad because in that tight environments manpower doesn’t matter that much and can even be a hindrance as every engagement is a test of one soldier’s equipment and skill against the others. Which means that if you and your squad are well coordinated it and keep control, panic in the enemy begins to rise, because you know everything from here on until the gap is filled with the enemy so we can just one after another finish them off, meanwhile the enemy can’t do shit, they see the men infront dying but they can’t aim so they panic because as proven by the continued fire, we’ve had better coordination and a quicker trigger finger than the our enemy, and they often try to run, that’s really the point where grenades become most effective because in the confusion they don’t notice them fall, then once they are properly peppered and concussed we go in to finish them off and seal the gap. (This is basically just a rant about why more ppl need to play verdun)
Hey Brandon random question how long do you stay down in these ww1 battles if you were to take a hit
Im curious, if someone wanted to get onto this as cheaply as possible. Any shops you recommend? Im on the westcoast and broke but want to get into this
Something that I would find interesting is how much interest and thought has been put into solving the cohesion and log jam problem of trench warfare. Of course, NATO doctrine would imply its impossible in any war they fight because doctrine says they must have air supremacy, not just air superiority. But the war in Ukraine implies that without that power, it reverts to a type of trench warfare.
The war in Ukraine strikes me as a WW1-style stalemate. Russia can only win by flat-out winning, but Ukraine can only win by not losing, if you follow my thinking. If Ukraine keeps up the stalemate until Russia says "Enough!" then they've won.
Ukraine has made clear that all of NATO doctrine is worthless against an opponent more sophisticated than 1990 Iraq. The Ukrainians are teaching their “advisors”, not the other way around. With an enemy that could deny the coalition air supremacy and strike their communications as well, western commanders would simply have no idea what to do.
Professionals discuss logistics, indeed.
"Safet in Trench Warfare":
1. Please wear your yellow reflective vest at all times 😛
Where do you get your WW1 gear? And what tips might you give for getting a U.S. or French kit?
Everybody always forgets the logistics of warfare
Nrandom, A very good video, I liked it a lot. Picky question time index 18:05 two men with a long pole carrying three boxes, what are these boxes for they seem very long ?
That's actually a photo from a training trench, I think in the States. So it may even just be an object they have to carry to simulate something in the real trenches! It kinda looks like just some wood, to me. Of course it could also be used to construct things.
I suspect they are cooked food
You can really see why the Germans went for less men and a more 'sinuous' defence, relying more or falling back and counter attacking rather than holding the initial position at all costs. If you can strike whilst your enemy is bottlenecked and uncoheisive you will be losing less troops and being more effective.
And the Germans became absolute masters at counter-attacks and recovery of lost ground and positions.
A step beyond our old paintball combats!
Holly cow those trenches are impressive. Did the reenactors build it? How long did it take? How much did it cost(roughly, if you know)? Well done if you guys did build it yourself. Too cool.
Badass would love to reenact
What decides when someone dies at that event?
May I know the music you use in the outro?
It’s actually a custom-commissioned channel theme.
@@BrandonF ah, thanks for responding. Can you consider posting it on your channel? It's very nice to listen to
0:46 I love the authenticity but I'm glad they didn't use real mustard gas!
As a veteran I can confirm that this reenactment is pretty close to military training. It's not always that we have M.I.L.E.S. systems to play with. As for realism, training is always conducted as close as possible to the real thing minus one detail, real bullets are not used but accidents do happen and deaths sometimes occur.
Hey I love this video and this whole thing but I’m curious, I understand that it’s improvisational, but how do you know if you die? Are you supposed to just take a second when you need to get your breath back and dramatically say “tell my wife I love her…” and look softly off into the distance and take a nap?
I still kick around doing WWI French, but it's bloody expensive. Regarding overcrowding and clustering, even though it's counterintuitively dangerous, soldiers will drift together because it feels good to be close to friendlies. Especially at night, where your sense of sight is gone, there's a primal fear of the dark, and troopers will congregate closer to their buddies because it feels safer, even though you are a making a bigger and better target.
I am curious, were the fire you guys were firing simply blanks or were they low powered rubber rounds? otherwise how was it determined someone was wounded or not, same goes for melee weapons
Don't think otherwise, they were blanks. Even rubber bullets can hurt you if they hit in the wrong place.
How do they determine "killed" or "wounded?" Beats me, unless it's on the "honor system" or you drop when you get tired.
(I have to wonder though, is it like when we were kids and played war? That is you drop, count to 50, and then you can be a new guy? 😂 )
Wayne has it right! No projectiles outside of thrown grenades and mortar rounds (which is also why helmets are required at all times) All the rifles are real, firing blank rounds. The casualties are taken on an honour system that (most) people are good about.
@@BrandonF I should have added even blank rounds can hurt you if they're fired close enough and at a tender spot. Never underestimate the power in a gunpowder "explosion," either live round or blank.
@@wayneantoniazzi2706 Absolutely- the event also has a policy where, if you're within a certain distance, you don't fire vertical but straight into the air. For example in trench fighting.
@@BrandonF Brandon you might find this interesting. Years back I encountered some German WW2-era 8mm Mauser blanks. I was surprised to see they had wooden bullets in them! I was told the Germans made them that way to ensure reliable feeding though rifles and machine guns. The bullets being made of a light wood would fall harmlessly to the ground after traveling a distance HOWEVER they could be dangerous and even deadly if fired at someone close-range. German soldiers were only to fire the blank rounds during war games with the muzzles super-elevated. If they took deliberate aim at someone it was a court-martial offense.
(Honestly I think anyone who's a veteran, myself included, will admit to taking aim at the guys on the "other side" during war games when making noise with blanks. But you didn't DARE do it in the old Deutsches Heer!)
One last thing about blanks I just remembered. It's not too well-known but President Reagan was partly deaf in one ear from a blank being fired too close to his head during his Hollywood days.
Weren't battery-operated torches a thing yet, in WW1 ?
They were around since the 1890's if I'm not mistaken but they'd have been pretty useless in a trench raid. Sure, they'd light your way but they'd also show the enemy exactly where YOU were. Better to leave them in your own trench and rely on the star shells for light. Not fun any way you look at it.