The British army pioneered the use of Tanks at the Somme, in September of 1915. However, in 1916, the first tanks appeared. Horses were also fighting animals, used by cavalry regiments. While the British army was more highly mechanised than many other forces of the period, it still relied heavily on horses for transport, and had around 500,000 in its service by 1918. Teams of six to 12 horses would pull field guns into position animals transported various forms of equipment and supplies, including food for the troops, to the front. Horses were used as beasts of burden, alongside donkeys, oxen and even dogs. These rail links supplied millions of soldiers to the front, all year round.Īnother major form of transport in World War One was one of the oldest: the horse. There were two trunk railways serving the Western Front, for instance, one supplying the German army from Flanders via Lille and the Ardennes and one the Allies controlled from the Channel ports via Paris to Lorraine. In terms of fighting capability, the German army was generally more efficient, so to a large extent, the opposing Allied powers had to rely on better logistics to help give them the kind of edge that would eventually lead to victory.Īt the time of the 1914 – 1918 war, the main form of transportation on land was by rail. The ends of the supply chain were the fighting fronts, but the chains themselves had to stretch back many hundreds of miles. This was a form of supply chain management on a huge scale. ![]() With the momentous marking of the centenary of the 1918 Armistice having just passed, we wanted to honour the armed forces by looking at military vehicles through the ages, and examining how, in the modern age of military transportation, high temperature insulation is an essential requirement.įor its time, the amount of equipment and people involved in World War One was unprecedented.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |