TriumphRider -> RE: Top Five of World War I (2/3/2007 2:03:10 AM)
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I don't know that the German's rejecting the tank was a war losing decision, by the time the tank became something of a regularity on the battlefield, the Germans had already sealed their fate. Besides, mechanized warfare was hardly what it would become, armored cars, tanks and other mechanized vehicles besides aircraft were all especially far too slow, unreliable and too few to create the kind of mechanization and movement that occured in 1939. True mobile/mechanized warfare was an impossibility in World War One: communications were far too inadequate, the vehicles simply did not exist in the numbers to make them usefull, nor as I said were they reliable or fast enough. Look at the constant examples of major blunders on world war one battlefields caused by indecision because of a lack of real time intelligence/communication. The Germans at 2nd Ypres is a perfect example, had real-time long distance communication been adequate, the Germans may have been able to realize the damage their gas attack had done. Instead the Germans NEVER intended to break through but were merely experimenting and seeing what effects the gas would have. Had their infantry been able to report back in-time as to what had happened, everything may have been different. I think the German's had their chance to win the war in 1916 and they didn't. Between 1915-16 the tank wasn't an issue and the German's failed to exploit the opportunities given them in those two years. They also failed on an enormous scale to manage their resources and their allies effectively. Despite the fact that many new technologies were introduced during world war one, NONE of them (with the exception of aircraft) were ever used to such effectiveness or on such a scale to have made them war winning tools. Gas, Tanks, Flamethrowers all worked very well initially, but none were in themselves enough to win anybody the war. I think the only technology that would have given one side a gigantic war winning advantage would have been radio that allowed vocal transmission. And of course nobody was able to develop it in time..
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