Weapons Technology and Industrialised Warfare

A number of innovations during the decades before WWI in the areas of chemistry, technology and production techniques led to a fundamental change in military technology and hence warfare. These developments in the fields of chemistry and technology were the result of the advancing industrialisation, ingenuity and changing military requirements. In this process the former weapon manufacturers developed into arms industries with serial production which had the capability to equip huge armies with standardised armoury of hitherto unknown precision and firepower. The gigantic attrition warfare of World War One would have been impossible without these large scale industrial arms industries and other factories of products indispensible for warfare. However, the First World War also turned out to be an 'industrialised war' apart from the gigantic input: in many ways it resembled a gigantic industrial plant in which soldiers played the part of a specialised workforce who operated the machinery (of war). The deployed military technology thus predetermined more and more the strategic and tactical options.