Why was the trench system ultimately unsuccessful as a military tactic? world war one! (10points)?

Question

Please answer asap, i really need to know.

:) thanks.

Answer 1

I would think the invention of tanks had a hand in it...

Answer 2

time constraints.

It takes a lot to dig trenches so as cold sets in and war fronts move, digging and then finding wood cement, sandbags to reinforce is a huge effort. Tanks and armored vehicles helped negate the affectiveness, airplanes were not much of a threat in ww I but were good for getting a view of where the other forces were.

Answer 3

when armoured vehicles (tanks)came into service, the trenches became ineffective.

Answer 4

Throughout World War I, the major combatants slowly groped their way towards the tactics necessary for breaking the deadlock of trench warfare, beginning with the French and Germans, with the British Empire forces also contributing to the collective learning experience. The Germans were able to reinforce their western front with additional troops from the east once Russia dropped out of the war in 1917. This allowed them to take units out of the line and train them in new methods and tactics as stormtroopers (Stosstruppen). The new methods involved men rushing forward in small groups using whatever cover was available and laying down covering fire for other groups in the same unit as they moved forward. The new tactics (intended to achieve surprise by disrupting entrenched enemy positions) were to bypass strongpoints and attack the weakest parts of an enemy's line. Additionally, they acknowledged the futility of managing a grand detailed plan of operations from afar, opting instead for junior officers on the spot to exercise initiative. These infiltration tactics proved very successful during the German 1918 Spring Offensive against Allied forces.

Conceived to provide protection from fire, tanks added mobility, as well. As the Allied forces perfected them, they broke the deadlock. While not effectively employed at first, tanks had tremendous morale effects on German troops in the closing stages of the war on the Western front. The average infantryman had no anti-tank capability, and there were no specialized anti-tank guns. Once tanks began to be used in concentrations, they easily broke through German lines and could not be dislodged through infantry counterattack.

During the last 100 days of World War I, the British forces broke through the German trench system and harried the Germans back toward Germany using infantry supported by tanks and close air support. Between the two world wars these techniques were used by J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart to develop theories about a new type of warfare. The ideas were picked up by the Germans, who developed them further and put them into practice as blitzkrieg.

The stunning victories by the Germans early in World War II using blitzkrieg showed fixed fortifications like the Maginot Line were worthless if there was room to circumvent them. At Sevastopol, Red Army forces successfully held trench systems on the narrow peninsula for several months against intense German bombardment. The Western Allies in 1944 broke through the (incomplete) Atlantic Wall with relative ease through a combination of amphibious landings, naval gunfire, air attack, and airborne landings. Combined arms tactics (where infantry, artillery, armour and aircraft operate in close cooperation) made trench warfare a thing of the past.

This is not to say entrenchment is redundant. It is still a valuable method for reinforcing natural obstacles to create a line of defence. For example, before the start of the Battle of Kursk, the Soviets constructed a system of defence more elaborate than any other they built during World War II. These defences succeeded in stopping the German armoured pincers meeting and enveloping the salient.[11] Also, at the start of the Battle of Berlin, the last major assault of World War II, the Russians attacked over the river Oder against German troops dug in on the Seelow Heights, about 50 km (30 mi) east of Berlin. Entrenchment allowed the Germans, who were massively outnumbered, to survive a barrage from the largest concentration of artillery in history; as the Red Army attempted to cross the marshy riverside terrain, they lost tens of thousands of casualties to the entrenched Germans before breaking through.

Trench warfare has been very infrequent since the end of World War I. When two large armoured armies meet, the result has generally been mobile warfare of the type which developed in World War II. However, trench warfare reemerged in the latter stages of the Chinese Civil War (Huaihai Campaign), Korean War and in some locations and engagements in the Vietnam War. During the Cold War, NATO forces routinely trained to fight through extensive works called "Soviet-style trench systems", named after the Warsaw Pact's complex systems of field fortifications, an extension of Soviet field entrenching practices for which they were famous in their Great Patriotic War. The most cited example of trench warfare after World War I was the Iran-Iraq War, in which both armies had a large number of infantry with modern small arms, but very little armour, aircraft, or training in combined operations. The result was very similar to World War I, with trenches and chemical warfare being used.

Answer 5

when using incendiary* ( spelling, trying to use a fancy word for flammable ) methods, or even when using bombs, when dropping munitions from airplanes, this tactic ultimately fails.

It actually ends up entrapping the military personnel, without anyway to retreat from the two mentioned tactics against it.

It also negates any use of armor, such as tanks to provide any immediate support in the immediate theatre.

Answer 6

well the arrival of mustard gas was a massive problem. not to mention  heavier more accurate artillery and mortars. Also grenades  were hard to evade. plus supplies were still moved  with pack animals.