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WW1 Air Warfare
War that takes place in the air. The craft, pilots, services and tactics of war airfare during the period 1914-1918.
700 Questions
What was the use of airplanes during World War 1?
In World War I, airplanes were used for reconnaissance, bombing, intercepting, and (especially seaplanes) for maritime patrols.
This was the first war where aircraft became a primary weapon, able to attack enemy supply areas well behind the front lines. This also heralded the advent of air-to-air combat (dogfights) between aircraft of opposing forces.
When was the first flamethrower invented?
Flamethrowers were invented in 1900 and tested in secret by the imperial German army the following year.
Technically, the flamethrower was invented around the 10th century B.C. by the ancient chinese.
Who was first American to shoot down an enemy aircraft in World War 1?
Second Lieutenant Samuel Junkin, 308th Fighter Squadron earned distinction as the first active-duty American pilot to shoot down a German aircraft over Europe on August 19, 1942. http://www.aviano.af.mil/Subfolders/World%20War%20II-new.htm Nice information, but wrong. I don't have a individual pilot's name but I can say for sure that a group of 80 American citizens, who went to Great Britain on their own, and volunteered to become RAF pilots, were flying Spitfires and Hurricanes in 1940, during the Battle of Britain. They were members of the two RAF Eagle Squadrons. So would you like to split hairs, about what air force they were a member of??? Or would you agree that they were AMERICANS and were shooting down German air craft, over England, in 1940, not 1942?
What impact did USA have on world war one?
Simply put, World War One began in the year 1914 and ended in 1918.
The initial catalyst was in June 1914: the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian empire wanted to extradite the killer, but Serbia refused.
Once the spark of the Archduke's assassination had lit the fuse, war became virtually inevitable due to the alliance system that the major powers had set up - they literally tumbled into war.
Austria mobilized, Serbia mobilized, in response to Austrian mobilization against Serbia, Russia mobilized, in response to Russian mobilization against Austria, Germany mobilized and in response to German mobilization both Britain and France mobilized.
In the summer of 1914 the war began to rage in both the east and the west. It would not end until November 1918.
Here are some key dates:
28 July 1914: Austria declared war on Serbia.
1 August 1914: Germany declared war on Russsia.
3 August 1914: Germany declared war on France. WWI had begun.
4 August 1914: Britain declares was on Germany.
11 November 1918: It ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
More Input It started with the 28th June 1914 assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, in Sarajevo by a Serbian Nationalist. This incident precipitated a war with Serbia, eventually starting WW1
3 weeks later Austria/Hungary delivers severe ultimatum for Serbia to hand over asssassins hoping that Serbia would refuse giving them pretext for launching a limited war.
Serbia got back up from Russia.
Austria/Hungary got back up from Germany.
Austria/Hungary declare war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.
Russia mobilizes.
Germany declares war on Russia on 1st August 1914.
France declares war on Germany on 3rd August as they had a treaty with Russia. Germany invades neutral Belgium as it's the shortest route to Paris.
Britain declares war on Germany on 4th August as they have a "Moral obligation" to defend France. Britain was also obliged to defend Belgium. This then drew British dominions into the war which included Australia, Canada, India and South Africa.
Japan declared war on Germany on 23rd August 1914 honouring agreement with Britain.
Italy joined on the Allies side in May 1915.
US tries to stay neutral but when Germany starts unrestricted submarine warfare which threatens US commercial shipping, the US enters the war on April 6th 1917.
March 1917 Russian revolution breaks out (in Petrograd/St Petersburg) which leads to the abdication of Tzar Nicholas II and in turn the formal withdrawl of Russia from the war when they sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
11/11/1918 Armistice Day-WW I ends (at 11 AM on Western Front).
More Input The First world war could be said to have started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary on 28th June 1914, although a war had looked imminent for several years. However Austria-Hungary didn't declare war on Serbia, the country where the supposed assassin came from, until a month later. Germany declared war on Russia, who supported the Serbs, on the 1st of August, and two days later declared war on Russia's ally, France. Germany then instigated the Schleiffen plan to invade France through Belgium, effectively declaring war on Belgium in the process. Britain, outraged at Germany's invasion of their ally Belgium declared war immediately, and the combined empires of Britain and France meant that much of the world was now at war.
However the British Expeditionary Force didn't arrive in France until the 22nd of August, and the first battles of the Great war weren't fought until late in August. The major battles (such as the first battle of the Marne and the first battle of Ypres) didn't start until the 6th of September and the 15th of October respectively. The United States didn't enter until the 6th of April 1917, and their troops didn't arrive in France until the 25th of June.
Unrest in Russia led as many as 2 million Russian soldiers to desert in the autumn of 1917. The new Bolshevik government signed a peace treaty, surrendering huge swathes of land, such as the Ukraine and Poland, to Germany on the 3rd of March 1918.
The allies finally broke through the line at Albert in Belgium on 21st August 1918, following this final "big push" with many other offensives on the German line, pushing the Germans into a retreat. The Allies captured the Hindenburg line, Germany's last line of defence on 5th October 1918. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated the 9th of November 1918, and an armistace was arranged to take effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918. This poetic date cost the lives of thousands of men, shots were fired in anger until the final seconds.
Comment "an armistice was arranged to take effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month 1918. This poetic date cost the lives of thousands of men, shots were fired in anger until the final seconds"
The armistice was scheduled to take effect as soon as practical. After all, it was essential to inform all units of the agreed time. Both sides feared that they would have difficulty doing this. The notion that the Allies in effect put poetry before lives is nonsense.
Who are the top 20 German aces?
One was Hans-Ulrich Rudel whose accomplishment was unusual since he was a Stuka dive bomber pilot on the Eastern Front. As a young pilot he was considered to be a poor pilot and was assigned staff duties during the Battle of Britain and finally was given training in dive bombers and sent to the Eastern Front. He flew a total of 2,530 combat missions and was shot down or forced to land 32 times. He was never shot down by another pilot, only by anti aircraft fire. He is credited with destroying a Soviet Battleship, two cruisers and a destroyer, 519 tanks, 150 Self Propelled Artillery weapons, 4 armored trains and nine aircraft including seven fighters. He was known as the Eagle of the Eastern Front.
What was Eddie rickenbacker's nickname?
Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, was a famous American pilot, who flew over the trenches on the day of the armistice. He described what had happened when the guns fell silent.
found in:
The American Us History Book
page 586 chapter 19 section 2
How did the machine gun change the nature of fighting?
The Gatling Gun was similar to the machine gun in that it could kill multipule people fast.
The Gatling Gun was not the first machine gun, but it was the most practical up to that time. Gatling refused to sell them to the Confederate Army, and the Union Army did not want them, although a few were purchased and used. The US Army and other armies bought them after the war. Actually, the Gatling Gun had little impact in battle. Custer has been criticized for refusing a battery of Gatlings, but he did so because the guns were heavy and slow, and had to be mounted on the same carriage used by the artillery for their cannon. Thirty years later in the Russo-Japanese War, cavalry machine guns were available which could easily be packed on the back of a horse, but these came much too late for Custer. It could be said that the Gatling Gun changed warfare because it was the precursor to later machine guns.plus it was the best gun at it's time got the job done with out a problem.
New weapon of war first used by the Germans in 1915?
Well, by using the process of elimination:
1. It wasn't the submarine, because the Americans were first during the Revolutionary War in 1776.
2. It wasn't the airplane, because the Italians were first in 1911.
3. It wasn't the rocket, because the ancient Chinese used them first.
4. It wasn't the tank, because the British were the first to use them in WWI.
5. It wasn't the jet, because, again, the British have laid claim to using them first.
6. It wasn't chemical, flame, or biological weapons, because those too were used in the past by other nations.
7. It wasn't the atomic bomb, because America had that weapon first.
How were fighter planes beneficial in ww1?
Well, air power was not hugely important in WWI. However, they were mainly used to spy on each other. Airplanes would fly over enemy territory to take pictures. There were also fighters to protect their spy planes, and shoot down enemy spy planes. Also, there were bombers at the time, but they weren't nearly as heavily used.
The first successful aeroplane was named :-Kitty Hawk
It was also called the Wright Flyer, after the designers.
How was a zeppelin used in World War 1?
airplanes and zeppelins were used during this war by putting bombs in this planes called zeppelins to attack other countries, from the germans. Whilst this is correct, the reason for use differs. Zeppelins were already in use by the German army at the outbreak of WW1. Initially the Germans looked to use seaplanes to attack England, until these were utilised on the Eastern front instead. Zeppelins could carry a higher payload of incendiary devices than the early planes. Zeppelinitus was already in play prior to the war and,by utilising them during the war, the Germans hoped to break down the British. With time, the frailities of the Zeppelins were exposed, being highly combustable as they used so much gas to be able to fly. The allies developed their planes to attack the Zeppelins with high success rates. The cost, in both lives and monetary terms, became too great to keep the zeppelins in the air and the Germans eventually turned to the infamous WW1 bomber, the Gotha.
What new weapons were invented or first used in World War 1?
Here is a list of those weapons and military items which were invented either during the course of the war (1914-1918), or which were invented shortly before (roughly 1900-1914) and saw their first military action during WW1:
- Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)
- ASDIC & Hydrophones
- "Hedgehog" anti-submarine weapon
- Depth charges
- Poison gases - the first military use of Chlorine, Phosgene, Cyanide, and Mustard gas
- Aircraft - very minor experiments in aerial bombing had occurred prior to WW1, but WW1 was the "coming out" party for air power, even if the overall impact of airplanes on the war was minor.
- Armored Tanks
- Portable Flamethrowers
- "Trench" mortars
- Motorized transport - while not technically a weapon, WW1 saw the introduction of gas- and diesel-powered tractors and trucks, which replaced a good deal of the logistical transport that horses and mules had provided for millenia. It revolutionized logistics in the same manner that railroads had.
- Lightweight machine guns - guns which could be used on the move, rather than require a fixed firing position - for instance, the Lewis gun. This is the beginning of the squad fire-support role, rather than company-level fire support as provided by heavy machine guns.
These are a list of weapons which, while neither invented during or first used in a military setting during WW1, nonetheless had their first significant use during the war - that is, the real effectiveness of the weapon was first demonstrated to a large audience of military
- Submarines - while submarines had been invented in the mid-1800s, they were not technologically advanced enough to be usable as a weapon of war until the maturation of the Whitehead torpedo and reliable diesel engines, which mean that the first militarily-useful submarine was not build until close to 1910.
- Hand grenades - small hand-thrown "bombs" date to antiquity, but the modern fragmentation grenade saw its large-scale debut in WW1.
- Semi-automatic pistols - WW1 was the first time that the large-scale use of semi-auto pistols by militaries; however, trench warfare's hideously dirty environment made for a relatively poor debut, with revolvers remaining the favorite sidearm.
- Modern steel helmet - while not technically a weapon, and while helmets were thousands of years old in design, what we now recognize as an essential part of a soldier's gear was re-introduced with a whole new design.
- Amphibious infantry assaults - WW1 saw the first attempts at very large-scale combined-arms assaults from the sea across a beach.
- "Special Forces" teams - while militaries always had had elite units, and sometimes picked small groups for special assaults, WW1 saw the first organizational creation of small assault groups which used tactics, weapons, and equipment different than the traditional infantry. That is, these units were distinguishable from the ordinary infantry. The German strosstruppen were leaders in this new field.
Finally, here is a list of weapons which, while commonly associated with use in WW1, were nonetheless widely used before the war, and the military strategists either knew or should have known of their impact:
- machine guns - the Maxim machine gun (the first gas-recoil automatic gun) was designed in the 1880s, and was deployed by all armies well before WW1. It was notably used in the British Colonial Army during various colonial wars in Africa. Sadly, military circles severely underestimated the defensive power of this weapon when used in Europe.
- Whitehead Torpedo - the first practical modern torpedo was demonstrated in 1870.
- Wireless Radio - radio was a late 1800s-invention, but was only beginning to be deployed to naval vessels before WW1, and was not fully utilized well by land-forces (mostly due to the large physical size and power requirements of radios at the time).
- Efficient Diesel Engine - particularly in submarines and small naval vessels, compact, powerful, and long-range diesel engines changed the balance of naval architecture.
- Large-scale Siege Artillery - the use of massive-size artillery ( 300mm+ bores) firing indirectly was well known.
- Artillery barrages - the scale to which massive numbers of artillery would fire continuously upon an opponent's fixed position was wholly new to WW1, where the volume and scale of such bombardments dwarfed anything prior.
- Barbed wire - while barbed wire had been used in several smaller wars before, the extensive use of wire to restrict large-scale unit movement was entirely new to WW1
- Shotguns - these had been used since the early 1800s, and were in declining use in militaries by WW1. However, trench warfare brought back their popularity (particularly by the Americans).
What is the fasted airplane in the world?
a rocket or the Concorde from british airways retired and was shape like an bird
Who won most dog fights in World War 1?
The early definition of the word 'dogfight' meant an aerial battle between two or more aircraft. As the First World War broke out not long after the aeroplane had been invented, there had not been time to develop guns which could be built into the body of a plane. The first fighter planes were only equipped with machine-guns which were fixed onto the top wing.
These early fighter aircraft had two two seats, with a man sitting in the rear controlling the guns. Dogfights were extremely difficult because the pilot would have to dodge other enemy aircraft while listening to the commands of the gunner as to where to fly to get the enemy into his sights.
How many US pilots flew combat missions in World War 1?
The US built versions of British & French airplanes; and used British & French airplanes as well as British/French tanks both during and after WWI. The first excellent adapted US tank was the model 1917 French Renault two man tank; built in the USA under French license. Prior to the model '17, the US built (under license) some British Mark tanks (less than satisfactory, compared to the Renault).
What is the main theme of the book Goodnight Mr Tom?
goodnight mr tom is about a boy called William and he has to get out of the country because the war is going on so he get's evacuatedmr tom and will find a good relationship
Goodnight Mister tom is a book by Michelle Magorian. It is set in the world war and Willie is evacuated from London. He goes to live with an old man called mister Tom in little wierwold. At first Willie is shy and small. He has had problems at home. (but i don't want to ruin it for any of you reading it at the moment so i won't tell you what) After 6 months Willie is a strong happy young boy and has made good progress. He is fantastic at drawing and can capture anything. He has four friends called Zach, Ginnie and Crrie and George. All is well until he is asked for back at home. Sadly Willie travels back to London, but all goes downhill from there...
How many kills did Billy Bishop record?
Bishop was officially credited with 72. This puts him third on the overall list behind Germany's Richthofen (80) and France's Fonck (75). Bishop was thus the second highest scoring Allied ace, and the highest in the British Empire and Commonwealth. He was a Canadian. Udet of Germany was fourth overall, with 62. Of these four, all but Richthofen survived the war.
What chemical weapons did the Germans use in ww1?
The twenty-second of April 1915 started out as a warm and sunny day, by the end of the afternoon a breeze sprang up from the North. The wind came from behind German lines, toward the Allies (British, French, Algerians)who were in place at Langemarck, near Ypres, Belgium. The German guns that had been bombarding the Allies all day suddenly stopped firing. At five o'clock, three red rockets streaked into the sky, signaling the start of a deafing artillery barrage. High explosive shells pounded into the deserted town of Ypres and the villages around it. At the same time the troops sheltering near Langemarck saw two greenish-yellow clouds rise from the enemy's lines, catch the wind and billow forward, fradually merging to form a single bank of blue-white mist. German chemical warfare pioneers were opening the valves of six thousand cylinders spread out along four miles. Chemical warfare had began.
What is the largest sea battle of ww1?
THE BATTLE OF jutland IN1915 BETWEEN THE ROYAL NAVY AND THE GRAND FLEET OF GERMANY
But the Grand Fleet was the Royal Navy, the German fleet was the High Seas Fleet. Just thought you ought to know!
Who flew the sopwith triplane?
The Sopwith Triplane was flown by both the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service. It took the Germans entirely be surprise and led to them creating the Fokker Dr I triplane, themselves. In the only known instance of a triplane vs triplane encounter, the Sopwith, flown by a member of the famous Black squadron (predominently Canadian pilots) shot down the Fokker, which was flown as a 'loaner' to a member of Von Richtoffen's 'Flying Circus'. Motorcycle fans may recognise the names of some of the Black squadron as, Black Shadow, Black Lightening, Black Prince, etc, which were used as model designations by HRD-Vincent Motorcycles. The Sopwith Triplane did not have a long service life and was replaced the Camel by the time the RFC and RNAS became the Royal Air Force.Regards Richard Wm Short
Ottawa - Canada
Can an enlisted aerial gunner with 5 or more victories be considered an ace?
This is a good question, and it might be addressed on "flying ace" websites (especially in their discussion columns).
Backseaters (RIO-Radio Intercept Officers) riding in the two seater F4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam reportedly received a "kill" credit for "their" Phantom downing an enemy MiG in Vietnam.
There had been some controversey on UAV aerial kills in Vietnam (MiGs shooting down US "Firebee" drones (UAV's). Apparently some NVAF MiG Ace was claiming credit for "air kills" of US Firebees. Which brought up the question if WWII British pilots received "aerial victory" credit for shooting down a German V1 Buzz Bomb over Britain in 1940. The V-1 being an early version of today's UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). It appears that the majority of the writers/readers/historians were split on whether or not RIOs/Backseaters/UAV killers should be aces or not (or at least credited with an aerial victory).
