Even the typical magazine fed infantry rifle was an enigma to war planers in it’s day. The bayonet was considered the only really useful weapon of the offense. It was thought that the need for attacking troops to stop and take aim would slow the offensive and weaken discipline. All military planners assumed that the conscript and undertrained soldiers would discontinue the attack once they sought shelter in shell holes. The concept of “scoot and shoot” where small squads of soldiers would mutually support each other to attack a position by moving from cover to cover under supporting fire was thought to be too complex and unwieldy for the soldiers of the day. Effective real-time communication with artillery and rear area leadership was years away. Command of the day did not trust the rank and file soldier to act independently, nor could the time be spared to train them to do so. So soldiers attacked in file under strict schedules and with massive artillery barrages.

To further complicate the job of the infantry in the early years of the war, all sides had under estimated the quantity and caliber of shells needed to cut barb wire and destroy troops sheltered in trenches. All the armies in 1915-1916 suffered from severe shortages of large caliber high explosive shells.

They also suffered from quality control issues, as a large quantity of the existing shells stocks failed to explode. During the sustained artillery barrages that proceeded the battles of 1915-1916, the millions of small caliber shells fired only succeeded in warning the enemy of an attack and only churned up the battlefield, which made rapid and orderly progress across no-mans land impossible. Almost without exception the attacking troops found the barb wire uncut by shell fire and the enemy trenches maned by troops with machine guns.

Yet all sides understood that defensively the infantry rifle of 1914 was a superb killing machine, it was highly accurate, reliable and could kill at distances up to 1,400 yards in fact the British considered anything under 600 yards “close range”, although on average the effective killing zones were much closer, 300 yards or less, and at those ranges it was deadly accurate. It could be quickly loaded and fired by the average soldier in all types of weather. And the rifles sub-sonic round could do devastating damage to the human body, the bullet carried with it bits of dirty cloth and dirt into the wound, causing infection on top of the trauma of the actual wound, and shock ( which was little understood).

  Among other technical innovations this period saw the first use of airplanes for both offensive use and reconnaissance. Aircraft were used as bombers, to hunt and destroy enemy reconnaissance aircraft, to strafe infantry, even to scout for naval forces and submarines.