Artillery vs. Trenches

In wars like World War 1 where trenches were used extensively, why didn't they just shell each others entrenched positions with artillery? How didn't artillery render trenches useless?

>why didn't they just shell each others entrenched positions with artillery
They did. They also used mortars and grenade launchers.

still relatively inaccurate, although deviation could be minimized.

Also, the primary doctrine at the time was softening via artillery, and to take fortified positions with infantry pushes.

There were attempts are quite literally bombarding points out of existence, the battle of Verdun and Paschendale for example.

These attempts were quite literally squeezing every last drop of industrial capacity of all countries at the time, and they simply lacked the efficiency and technology to produce enough destructive power to do so.

They definitely tried though, the pictures of fort douaumont before and after pictures are so incredible that I almost don't believe it.

And officers just sent more people into these deathpit trenches every time a battalion was decimated by enemy shelling? Doesn't seem very cost effective just to send wave after wave of men under the crosshairs of hostile artillery just to hold a position

I think if you cared about how troops survived bombardments, you would look for a credible source.

I know you're only looking to be contrarian or shitpost because of a pathetic post like that.

No, it's just that the imagery of an endless rain of shells falling into these trenches, and wave after wave of men voluntarily occupying them seems ridiculous to me

Thats because it was ridiculous to send men into shellfire and gun fire but that's exactly what they did. In battles like the Somme they weren't even suppose to run at the German lines they were suppose to walk in formation with their platoon across no man's land and hope to not die.

That being said youre still an idiot and need to do more reading. Majority of ww1 losses were from artillery and disease but being in the trench itself was unlikely to get you killed.

Jesus it looks like some kind of weird cake

They would have bomb proof shelters and several lines of defense.

The first line was thinly held. Most soldiers would enter bomb proof bunkers and such when under bombardment.

It was a hit and miss affair.

You will (if you get off your ass and stop shitposting on4chan) read about WWI battles where outcomes of intense bombardments were:

>The soldiers reoccupied the trench after bombardment because they got into their bomb proof areas in time

>The trench was lightly held anyway with the main line of defense being further back

>There was a buncha dead guys in the trench

A shell had to directly hit a thin trench to have an effect, after hearing this infantry would run to bunkers or other sections of the trenches. Artillery is difficult to move and requires large earthworks if you want to entrench it and so doesn't have this advantage, to avoid counter-fire artillery had to fire from long distances reducing accuracy even further. Very big guns which fire from the same position for long periods of time become vulnerable to air attacks and specialized long range guns.

Overcoming the trenches wasnt the problem. The problem came with taking them and holding them against the enemy. Even after intense shelling you still need infantry to get there and take those trenches. Because communcations were poor most of the time the infantry couldnt work well with artillery support or request in mid-battle. After taking the trenches the infantry would be in enemy territory while cut off from the own supplies and artillery while the enemy had plenty of it.

There is a reason why during WW2 mechanized infantry and advanced communication systems became a thing.

>why didn't they just shell each others entrenched positions with artillery?
They did.

>How didn't artillery render trenches useless?
It did.

>why didn't they just shell each others entrenched positions with artillery
They shelled trenches a lot. Wasn't the most effective. Make a small ditch and try seeing how much damage you do to it and whatever's in it with a fuck ton of explosives.

The big killing power of artillery comes from it bursting and hurling bits of hot metal about very quickly.

The big defensive advantage of a trench is you're below ground and completely shielded from things flying about overhead.

So short of a direct hit, the artillery isn't very dangerous to a man in the trench because the bits of flying metal can't hit you.

The trenches also got, very, very sophisticated. Pic related. They started out simple but as the war dragged on they became very complex, with multiple lines of defense and fall-back positions, interlocking fields of fire, mutually supportive gun positions, hardened bunkers underground to shelter from the shelling ... and so on.

There was to issues that were going on. One there had been very little use of percussion fused land based artillery in between great powers. They knew that it did a bit worst then older time delay fuse, just not by how much. It effectively does improve rate of fire markedly and does some what improve the effectiveness per round of artillery in a war of movement. The follow up issue is that there had been a lot of development of artillery on the lighter side of things in the 20 years before the war. The French 75 mm field gun just was not really up to the task clearing a trench. The QF 4.5-inch howitzer was, but it was only 25% of the UK field artillery at the start of the war. The Canon de 105 mle 1913 Schneider also was effective, but entered service the year before WWI started thus were few in number at the start. To give a idea of the size gap of WWI and later the 7.5 cm FK 18 HEAT rounds were 30% heavier then the heaviest French 75 mm field gun rounds.

Also trenches improved very quickly. When the germans changed over to defense in depth it cut the casualty rate from artillery by 80% for example.

During WWI artillery was still mostly shrapnel shells which produced relatively low velocity fragments. They're effective against personnel (between 70-95% of all casualties during WWI were cause by fragments from artillery and mortars) but they didn't have the blast or concussive power of high explosives.

A more modern analogous would be the flak shells of WW2, which is why you see late war body armor very reminiscent to flak jackets.

It's also why you have the underground war in the tunnels, and even then they're planting tens of thousands of pounds of explosives that weren't always effective.

The primary doctrine on the western front of ww1 was at any given time to have around 10% of your soldiers actually in the trenches and 90% in reserve. The static defenses consisting of trenches with numerous strongpoints of fortified machine gun nests wrapped in barbed wire were impossible to take without sustained artillery barrages to soften them up. However when the enemy started a major barrage of one position that was a clear signal they were about to assault it so you use your massive reserves to shore it up.

>10% of your soldiers actually in the trenches and 90% in reserve.
No, those were 1918 era tactics.

>why didn't they just shell each others entrenched positions with artillery
They did that all the time, in fact that was artillery's primary purpose during the war.
>How didn't artillery render trenches useless?
Well firstly because its hard to hit a skinny ass trench from a mile away, and contrary to popular belief fortifications were generally a bit more intricate then just muddy shitholes.

To add to what this user said:

a) Field artillery fires at a relatively low angle compared to mortars and howitzers, so its actually quite hard to land a shell properly into a trench.

b) simply zig zagging trenches, like everyone did, means that even the most perfect mortar shot into the trench would only spread concussive force and shrapnel along a short lenght of the total trench line

Wauw great read, thanks for this.

They did.

It's how the trenches were constructed that minimised damage, they were narrow targets and hard to hit, and soldiers could survive shells landing fairly close to them as they were out of the way of the exploding ordinance. The zig-zag effect shown in this picture also minimised the impact of a direct hit as only the soldiers in that section of the trench would be wounded/killed

Majority of deaths in WW1 are due artillery. Trenches only reduced effectiveness of artillery, by reducing the surface area artillery can effectively bombard but that was it

Deaths were horrendous up front shelters were heavily used to negate deaths. As you see later in the war and the deaths mount the generals start to spread troops thin with front lines being miles deep this basically would negate heavy bombing because you couldn't concentrate on areas. Also shell holes made great hiding places they get deep in the ground and you could avoid direct hits. So when troops would charge front lines it'd be a slog through shitty terrain which protected the enemy from shelling and as you pushed in the defense would get stiffer because the numbers would increase.

Are you the OP of the picture? What book did you write?

Nice

>because the bits of flying metal can't hit you
That's why shrapnel shell would come into use for airburst over enemy trenches and likewise why people started wearing actual helmets in combat.