What were the impact of the tactics used in World War One?
Well, in effect the weapons of defence were superior to those of attack. Heavy artillery and the machine gun are essentially defencive weapons from which the only effective counter measure for infantry was entrenchment. Not until the invention of the tank, first used by the British Army in 1916 was an effective means of assault brought into use. Until then the only way the generals on all sides knew how to attack heavily defended entrenchments was by mass infantry assault. Clearly such tactics were repeatedly disastrous but it was the only tactic the generals knew because they had been schooled in the tactics of the 19th century which had change little since Waterloo. The generals thought that infantry assault should be preceded by continuous bombardment and although this killed many defenders one well placed machine gun could stop an attack in its tracks and bombardments were not particularly effective against the barbed wire entanglements laid in front of trenches.
