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Sean OBrien
Mrs. Cowan
Writing at the Threshold
14 April 2016
The Art of War: Styles of Fighting in the First and Second World Wars
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June of 1914 and the Blitzkriegstyle Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September of 1939 marked the beginning of the
First and Second World Wars, respectively. Although these conflicts were both of a global scale
and resulted in tremendous amounts of military and civilian casualties (the latter being mostly
from genocides), the way they were fought between the belligerent nations can be considered
distinctively different due to the advancement of weaponry and technology during and between
the wars.
In the First World War (1914-18, also called The Great War), before wave after wave of
Imperial Japanese warbirds appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor, airplanes were just getting
off the ground. The airplane, invented and first flown by the Wright Brothers in 1903, was not
originally intended to attack enemy targets. In fact, early in World War I, aircraft were first used
to observe the maneuvers of enemy soldiers and to spy on their trenches (Ganeri, Martell, and
Williams 189). Later in the Great War, they were then separated into different classes such as
fighters and bombers. Although weapons such as the fairly new machine guns were mounted on
these planes, they were put in line with the propeller; this meant that the timing of the firing of
the weapon had to be between the propeller blades. This was, for the most part, done away with
in World War II (1939-45). By the time the German Lightning War hit Poland, planes were

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basically armed to the teeth with machine guns and cannons, and carried massive payloads of
bombs. The vast majority of an aircrafts machine guns were kept in the wings, since they were
now solid and made of metal, unlike the flimsy wings of World War I biplanes. As the Second
World War progressed, fighters started to have more and more machine guns fitted into their
wing structure; some, like the U.S. North American P-51D Mustang had as many as four in
each wing! Back in World War I, the tactic of bombing targets on the ground was invented. The
pilot, or copilot, if there was one, simply dropped bombs over the side of the plane, hoping that it
would hit the target. In World War II, although the system was a lot better than before, bombing
targets was still a little difficult, as the weapons used werent exactly the laser-guided missiles of
today. As stated before, there were two primary classifications of planes at the end of the Great
War: Fighter and Bomber. In World War II, many fighters carried bombs as well, and this led
to the development of a third type of warplane: the Fighter-Bomber (real original, right?). This
new classification proved extremely deadly in the hands of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Instead
of flying overhead and dropping the bombs onto targets in the water, Japanese pilots would
intentionally fly their planes into enemy ships, ensuring maximum damage; this became known
as a Kamikaze attack (Kamikaze means Divine Wind in English). Another example of how the
aircraft changed warfare is how many planes, such as the German Junkers JU-52, were specially
made to act as transports in World War II, something that could not really be done in the Great
War. This made the transportation of troops and supplies a lot easier, and also allowed for the
development of paratroopers. In World War II, the roles of aircraft had expanded dramatically,
eventually including dropping the first nuclear weapons ever used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
on August 6th and 9th, 1945.

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However, as aircraft became more advanced, the nations fighting in World War II had to
come up with better ways to take them out of the sky. Although artillery was used to shoot down
planes a little in World War I, it really wasnt until World War II that specially made anti-aircraft
guns were produced. Famous pieces such as the German Flak 36 88mm fired special rounds that
exploded at a certain altitude, sending shrapnel in every direction. Often, troops on the ground
saw the black clouds of smoke from these explosions appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and
engulf an aircraft in flames instantly. Batteries of these anti-aircraft guns fired countless barrages
of rounds into the sky, so there were always explosions going off, and planes going down (from
both sides, mind you).
A little less than a year before D-Day (June 6th, 1944), during the time between July 4th
and 13th, 1943, the greatest clash of armored forces yet seen in warfare occurred (Butler et al.
202). The Battle of Kursk, fought between Nazi and Soviet forces, saw as many as 6,000
tanks, 4,000 aircraft, and 2 million fighting men (historynet.com). Kursk was, and still is, the
largest tank battle in history. By the time World War II began, tanks had completely transformed
the battlefield, partly due to the emergence of commanding figures such as Field Marshall Erwin
Rommel and General George S. Patton. The tanks of World War II had morphed from the
defense-breaking, trench-shattering behemoths that their Great War ancestors were into lean,
mean fighting machines. The main armament guns that most tanks of the Second World War
mounted were not the light 37mm cannons of the Great War-era French Renault FT-17. American
Shermans, serving with the U.S., British, Soviets, and other Allied nations, carried 75mm guns
(or even 105mm, for some later models). German war machines such as the Tiger I and Tiger II
King Tiger heavy tanks sported hefty 88mm cannons, the same guns that were used as antiaircraft weapons. In addition, the tanks of World War II were much, much faster than their earlier

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counterparts, moving at top speeds around twenty-five miles per hour. Tanks in World War I
could only achieve a top speed of three or four miles per hour! This meant that heavily armored
tanks could cover a lot of ground pretty quickly, which especially came into fruition during the
battles that took place in the wide open deserts of North Africa. As if that werent enough, the
Second World War also saw an explosion in the production numbers of tanks. In the First World
War, Britain made 2,636 tanks (firstworldwar.com). In fact, less than eight or nine thousand
tanks were produced by all nations who manufactured them combined! In the Second World War,
over 49,000 U.S. M4 Shermans alone, all variants included, were produced (Ludeke 133); this
made it the most produced tank of the war. From its beginnings as an armed forces add on in
World War I, the tank became a staple of modern armies in World War II. Its development and
improvement led to some of the greatest wartime machines ever built, such as the Soviet T-34/76
and American M4A3E8 Sherman Easy Eight. With turrets that could turn a full 360 degrees
(the Renault FT-17 was the first to have this), more powerful guns, and better track systems,
tanks dominated the battlefields of World War II, both in number and firepower.
The increased use of the tank led the armies of the Axis and Allies to create even more
powerful machines, which were dubbed tank destroyers or tank hunters. Usually, they
mounted even bigger guns than the tanks they hunted, such as the Soviet SU-122s massive
122mm gun, but most of them did not have a swiveling turret either. As tanks were just an
elementary aspect of warfare in World War I, these monsters had no reason to be developed. In
World War II, however, SU-122s and American M10 Wolverines became the poachers that
hunted down German Tigers and Panthers, and the German Jagdpanther proved to be the last
thing a Sherman wanted to do battle with. Just like how tank destroyers were made to counter
enemy armor, soldiers in World War II had their own ways of assaulting tanks, such as the

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German Panzerfaust 30M, a precursor to the modern RPG-7, and the U.S. M1 Bazooka. As seen
by the rethinking of trench warfare and the eventual need for an even more powerful Armored
Fighting Vehicle to destroy them, tanks definitely made an impact on how both World Wars were
fought, albeit in different ways.
Many people will often compare the style of fighting in World War I to how wars were
fought in the Middle Ages. And, although the two seem radically different, theyre really not.
Both time periods saw the use of heavy personal protection. Just as knights wore their gleaming
suits of armor to battle in the Middle Ages, special German soldiers called Stormtroopers (this
is where the name for Darth Vaders Imperial forces comes from) wore plate armor into battle.
The uniforms that these specialized troops wore was very much like a knights suit of armor,
both in appearance and design; made of metal plates, it gave the user more protection, but it also
came with the disadvantage of having less mobility. The use of metal armor was dropped by the
time World War II came around, but the Stormtroopers, now a part of the elite SS, remained.
However, rudimentary bulletproof vests were used in World War II, and so in this way, personal
protection stuck around.
Another comparison one might make between the Middle Ages and World War I is that
both periods saw brand new weaponry, such as the early cannons used by the French at the Siege
of Orleans and the advent of chemical warfare at Ypres brought on by the Germans. However,
the same can be said for the Second World War as well. Just as the British were the first to
produce tanks, the Germans started to use the science of rocketry and produced the V1 Flying
Bomb and V2 Rocket. In addition, similar to how the Germans introduced the world to
chemical warfare in 1915, the United States introduced the world to another new kind of warfare:
nuclear (via the Manhattan Project, which was done with cooperation with Britain and Canada).

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One of the main reasons why World War I and World War II combat was so different is
because of the difference between the more close up, or claustrophobic, fighting of the former
and the more open field fighting of the latter. The trenches dug all around Europe during World
War I made fighting extremely difficult, as they werent exactly spacious. The fighting inside the
trenches was often called medieval for a reason: World War I saw some of the most brutal and
highest-casualty battles ever seen in history up to that point, and even to today. For example, at
the Battle of the Somme in 1916, The first day alone of the Somme offensive resulted in some
57,470 British casualties, of whom almost 20,000 were killed (Butler et al. 157). Similarly, the
Germans alone lost 450,000 men in the Battle of Verdun, which went on at the same time (Butler
et al. 153). In addition, while the war was known for being the first to use such innovative and
advanced technologies like Mustard Gas, machine guns, and aircraft, it is quite ironic that the
struggles fought between soldiers once inside the trenches were prehistoric in comparison.
Soldiers fighting in the trenches used weapons specially crafted for maximum destruction of the
human body, such as trench knives and spiked clubs; some even resorted to using shovels. The
extreme level of violence that occurred in World War I trenches led to the near total
abandonment of their use.
However, World War II did not see much of this at all. Although there were some trench
battles in the Second World War, there was nowhere near the same amount of men involved, and
thus nowhere near the same amount of casualties in such battles. After witnessing the horrors of
trench warfare in The War to End All Wars, the military leaders of World War II found it better
to fight in the open plains and fields of Europe and Africa rather than dig underground. If
anything comes close to mimicking what trench warfare in World War I was like, its the War in
the Pacific and the Island Hopping Campaign the United States fought against Imperial Japan.

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The Japanese were insanely dedicated to their Emperor and their imperialistic ambitions. In fact,
they were very willing to die for their cause, as they practiced Bushido, and this made them a
very difficult enemy to defeat. The United States would once again be faced with this very same
situation twenty years later in Vietnam, albeit their enemy was the Vietcong. The Japanese dug
numerous tunnels on the islands which they had conquered, and were often only able to be
flushed out via flamethrowers. This was especially the case in the struggle for the island of Iwo
Jima. Also, World War II is the first war in which we see urban combat as we know it today;
cities such as Berlin received fire from enemy artillery positioned both inside and outside the city
as Soviet Red Army T-34 tanks and Lend-Lease M3 Half-Tracks prowled its streets in 1945. This
new urban warfare, something that wasnt really prevalent in World War I, would continue
throughout the rest of the twentieth century and into the present day.
In short, the carnage of World War I style trench warfare was just one of the factors that
led the belligerent nations of World War II to adopt alternative ways to fight each other, many of
which came about from the advancement of the technology of war. Innovations in how
instruments of war such as aircraft and tanks were designed, deployed, and manufactured, as
well as the development of new weaponry and learning from past experiences all led to the
transition of warfare from the trenches to open fields and cities.

Works Cited

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Butler, Rupert, et al. 100 Battles: Decisive Conflicts That Shaped the World. Bath: Parragon,
2012. Print.
Duffy, Michael. Weapons of War: Tanks. Firstworldwar.com. 22 August, 2009. Web. 14 April,
2016.
Ganeri, Anita, Hazel Mary Martell, and Brian Williams. Encyclopedia of World History. Bath:
Parragon, 2003. Print.
Ludeke, Alexander. Weapons of World War II. Bath: Parragon, 2007. Print.
Nipe Jr., George M. Battle of Kursk: Germanys Lost Victory in World War II. History.net. 12
June, 2006. Web. 14 April, 2016.