Background of news –
New and secret weapons
By Editorial Research Reports
The United States has one or two new secret weapons of air warfare which will deal “paralyzing” blows to the enemy, Gen. Arnold, chief of the U.S. Army Air Forces, announced Sunday.
Prior to 1939 predictions were rife that any new war would be completely annihilating, and quickly. Although some of these horrendous forecasts revolved around airplane bombing, and others around disease germs, most of them were concerned with the use of gas. Yet gas seems so far to have been used little in the present war – whether or not because the defense is known to be adequate, or because the results are not expected to be very effective, or because of fear of reprisal.
So far the new weapons of war developed in World War II have been the parachute battalion and the transport plane. (Barrage balloons might be considered entirely defensive.) The enormous new airplanes and tanks, after all, had their counterparts, albeit embryonic, in 1914-18, and the same thing is true of the far-ranging submarine. Two of the new weapons of war used in the last war have largely fallen into disuse in this one – the lighter-than-air Zeppelin and poison gas.
Airplanes were used in World War I largely for reconnaissance. Such bombing of cities from the air as occurred was largely from Zeppelins.
The submarine in German hands was highly effective for some time, especially when used without restrictions.
Some historians of the First World War declare that Germany did not possess, even in 1918, enough submarines for use both as commerce destroyers and as adjuncts to the fleet – perhaps one reason for keeping the German fleet in port after the Battle of Jutland. And the convoy system, for the development of which Prime Minister Lloyd George is usually given chief credit, finally met the U-boat challenge adequately.
Poison gas was first used, by the Germans, in April 1915 against the British line in Belgium, around Ypres. It seems to have been chlorine gas. The effect was devastating, but the German army leaders had placed little faith in gas, and were not prepared to follow up the havoc which it caused.
In 1916, at Verdun, the Germans used phosgene gas, discharged from shells, but by this time the Allies had developed defenses against gas. In fact, the British themselves had used gas in September 1915 and were aided by the fact that the prevailing winds in Belgium and northern France blew toward instead of away from the German lines.
But it was the tank which was the most effective new weapon of warfare. Winston Churchill, while First Lord of the Admiralty, was largely instrumental in having the tank manufactured in quantity.
A few tanks, first called “landships” were used by the British at the Battle of the Somme, in September 1916; the results led the Allies to begin manufacturing them on a large scale. In November 1917, the British again used tanks, but were not prepared to follow up the success. By the summer of 1918, when the German force was spent, the tank was in the forefront of the spearheads which Foch drove into the German line.
