Landships II

Ironsides · Legend

US Official War Film

Rectalgia · Legend

Some more US Signal Corps compilations - some duplication of the above but includes a fair amount of non-American footage as well (even the brave ammunition dogs, construction of the El Qantara railway, etc.) something for everyone - well, not many tanks.

archive.org Prelinger Archives
America Goes Over - Government-produced historical record of major World War I battles.

http://www.archive.org/details/AmericaG1918
http://www.archive.org/details/AmericaG1918_2
http://www.archive.org/details/AmericaG1918_3
http://www.archive.org/details/AmericaG1918_4
http://www.archive.org/details/AmericaG1918_5

Also free-downloadable

Rectalgia · Legend

Oh, have I not mentioned this before? (can't find it on search) - from British sources, for those who enjoy military history and footage thrown together by a tipsy Trg WO - supposedly "The development of the Sapper for war purposes from 1900 to WWII":

Sapper Film 1
Sapper Film 2

(BRITISH PATHE free to view in preview format, roughly 10,549 other clips on the topic of "War and Revolution" there with dates 1896-1976 covered in archive, supposedly.

The pair above have observation balloons and kites, Queen Victoria's funeral - maybe the "soldier-artificers" were in charge of internment - but scads of other things that seem to have very little to do with sapperly pursuits on a quick scan. Except, I suppose, the officers of the Royal Engineers were by far the best educated for nigh on a century and a half and almost any "new" technology fell to them to introduce into service. wink

Any argument to the contrary shall be treated with great condescension and enormous disdain.

kieffer · Commander in Chief

Rectalgia wrote:
Except, I suppose, the officers of the Royal Engineers were by far the best educated for nigh on a century and a half and almost any "new" technology fell to them to introduce into service. Any argument to the contrary shall be treated with great condescension and enormous disdain.

cynical sarcasm included too? I would love to counter that! But for one time I agree with your bold statement: Yes, technical branch officers were and hopefully still are well educated, I think in other armed forces too. At least on the continent many had a second carreer in civil services as railways, and... in one little country near the North Sea quite a few went into the dam and dyke building business, bringing their rather hierarchical attitudes and manu militari with them too.

Rectalgia · Legend

No cynicism - simple fact (at least as far as the WW1 era and before went). Nothing particularly British about it - S�bastien Le Prestre de Vauban set the standard in military engineering and, from that time, the profession surpassed the standards of the Romans at last.

The drop shorts (artillery) were surprisingly reactionary in terms of technology - the first RBL cannon were consigned to the colonies or sold to the Confederate States long before quick-firing weapons were taken up by major land forces.

Infantry - Sir John Moore made a magnificent start with Light Infantry training but that was not advanced for a hundred years, the model of the Infantryman as an automaton better suiting the uncritical standards of the greater part of the military establishment(s) for all of that time, which reflected nothing less than the abysmal standards of officer selection and training in general. Moore learned from his opponents, the revolutionary armies of America and France but the spark was lost, it seems to me.

Talking of RBL/QF cannon, there's some footage in the Signals Corps films of US Gunners firing a 75 at something unseen at point blank and they must be approaching 25 rounds per minute, maybe even 30. Maybe it was just field training, but impressive nonetheless. No field-piece can keep that up for long of course so a rare sight to see. There's a similar scene in there where they're firing at more normal elevation at a more normal 15 rpm or so but the first instance is the one to look out for!

kieffer · Commander in Chief

25 rounds per minute, that's Quick Firing taken literally! (the terminology is a bit misleading, referring to the quick action breech more than to the firing rate).
25 or more was not that unusual, a trained British18pounder crew fired 30 rpm.
I wonder which type of paint they used, those days, as it must stand some heat on the barrel. That couldn't have been the linseed oil based, I think, and I don't know if synthetic components were already invented ('modern' alkyd based paint is from the 20's).

Reactionary military: I guess every new piece of machinery takes its time before totally accepted, in military as industry as well. Saboteurs...the word coming form angry French textile workers smashing 'modern' looms with their sabots, wooden shoes.
After the debacle of 1940 (again French: they even call it 'le grand debacle') many European countries overrun by the Wehrmacht started to investigate (based on German intelligence reports too) why things went wrong. Frustrated by the quick defeat these reports weren't always that objective (culminating in the Riom trials in Vichy France where they tried to put the blame on former political leaders). For the Dutch artillery in particular, their officers were considered technologically very well educated (mathematics, physics etc.) but tactically under the limit. But every army by then had its Hobarts, people that were not listened to for many reasons. And some 'Hobarts', with all respect for their excellent conduite, worked over a little bit their pre war revolutionary status, as general De Gaulle did in his writings on tank tactics.