Why Is World War One Important

World war 1 was the first major war in history involving Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire also known as the central power fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States also known as the allied power. Today I want to talk about weapons. Arguably the most important item during wars. Ranging from guns to tank, they play a huge role. In this essay I will talk about the weapons I think is the most important. Without weapons, I think that war will not exist.

MACHINE GUN, the most important weapon during world war 1 in my own honest opinion. The reason why I choose the machine gun is because it can shoot up to 300 rounds per minute or more. It can cause huge damage to the opponent causing many death
or injuries. They are fully automatic mounted and design to fire bullets from an ammunition belt. There are many types of machine guns being used during the war including a semi-auto machine gun. The fully automatic machine guns are usually mounted on a tripod as a support weapons, usually lean on the ground. However the machine guns are very heavy , they weight up to 30-60 kg and without the mountings and ammo.

THE RIFFLE , one of the most common weapon used by the soldiers.
They are portable and much lighter compared to the machine gun. The lee Enfield riffle is used even now The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle that served as the main firearm used by the military forces of the British Empire. It weigh only 4.5kg and below, much lighter than machine gun. It can shoot up to 20-30 rounds per minute. It has a maximum fire range of 2743
metres.

FLAMETHROWER, only used by the German soldiers against the British and French soldiers. The idea of a flamethrower is to spread fire by launching burning fuel. It is smaller and lighter to carry and it only take one soldier to carry one. It can cause serious damage to the opponent as it burns them to ashes. It has a maximum fire range of 45 metres and weigh only 30.8kg. But however this weapon will run out of fuel easily. For safety reasons, the propane tank is behind the combustible liquid tanks in order to prevent being hit by a bullet.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS, is the use of toxic gasses / chemicals to fight against the enemies. They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. Usage of chemical weapons also depends on the weather , if the weather is still and slow moving , the weapon will be useless but if the weather is windy , the weapon will be very useful. Countermeasures was developed such as gas masks so it is not so useful overtime. Gas guns and tear gas were commonly used during that period of time. The killing capacity of chemical weapon was limited, with about ninety thousand fatalities from a total of 1.3 million casualties caused by gas attacks.

TANKS, were still very new to the World War 1.
A tank is a heavily armoured vehicle designed to be in front of the fighting line with heavy fire power , strong armour and a powerful engine providing good providing good battlefield maneuverability. Large and powerful canons were mounted on it. They are heavily armoured and they can take shots from various guns. As it is still new , you’ll expect lots of disadvantages such as they move very slow and vulnerable to grenades and land mines. They are very heavy to you will expect them to sink in mud and they can be easily spotted by enemies as the are so huge. They cost a lot to built a tank as it need lots of material to be heavily armoured. The soldiers that operate the tanks often die of
dehydration.

In conclusion, weapons have been improving over the years as they are getting lighter and lighter , faster and faster. Wars are human's worst nightmare so non of us would like to have war. But if war ever come, weapons will save the day.