Could the K-Wagen have won World War 1?

Answer 1

Maybe, if there were enough of them, and they were massed for an attack in one area big enough to create a sizable breakthrough.

Once in a while, one side or the other was able to make a breakthrough in the opposing trench lines. The problem was always how to take advantage of it when they did. The ground where the fighting took place to make the breakthrough would be crossed by trench lines and churned and completely covered by shell craters. This always made it almost impossible to move artillery forward through the breach in the enemy lines. The first units in the attack which made the breakthrough would be heavily depleted by lost men, and very tired. New units had to try to get forward over the torn up ground to keep the momentum of the assault going. New units were needed not just to drive deeper into enemy territory but to turn to both sides of the initial breakthrough, to try to "roll up" more of the enemies lines on either side. To keep these attacks going the troops needed artillery support, but again, it was almost impossible for the mostly horse-drawn artillery to get forward through the devastated ground of the breakthrough area.

To mass enough men to first make a breakthrough, and then successfully exploit it when that was accomplished, was almost impossible to hide from the enemy. Huge dumps of artillery shells, many additional batteries of artillery, and a great many additional divisions of troops had to be concentrated where an attack was to take place. The enemy almost always spotted these preparations and massed his own forces to resist.

When the Germans launched their series of last desperate attacks in 1918, beginning in March, to try to win the war before the Americans could make their weight felt on the Western Front, in the first attack they achieved one of the most stunning breakthroughs of the war. They obliterated an entire British field army, and drove ultimately about forty miles deep into British territory. But then they ran out of steam, the frontline troops exhausted, artillery unable to keep up, new units not at hand and with all the difficulties of moving forward over ground just fought over.