The Arbalète sauterelle type A allowed bombs to be thrown into trenches beginning what was called what?
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Sauterelle The Arbalète sauterelle type A, or simply Sauterelle (French for grasshopper), was a bomb-throwing crossbow used by French, and British forces on the Western Front during World War I. It was designed to throw a hand grenade in a high trajectory into enemy trenches. It was initially dismissed by the French Army but General Henri Berthelot thought it had practical value.
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Trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are significantly protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. The most famous use of trench warfare is the Western Front in World War I. It has become a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges and futility in conflict.
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New Zealand Tunnelling Company The New Zealand Tunnelling Company (also "New Zealand Engineers Tunnelling Company") was a tunnel warfare unit of the Royal New Zealand Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during World War I which specialised in sapping and mining. The tunnelling companies were occupied in offensive and defensive mining involving the placing and maintaining of mines under enemy lines, as well as other underground work such as the construction of deep dugouts for troop accommodation, the digging of subways, saps (a narrow trench dug to approach enemy trenches), cable trenches and underground chambers for signals and medical services. The unit is particularly known for its role at Carrière Wellington and during the Battle of Arras.
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Operation Braunschweig Operation "Braunschweig" (Eng: "Brunswick"), named after the German city, was the German summer offensive that began on 28 June 1942. The operation was initially named "Fall Blau" (Case Blue), which is the common name used for the whole offensive. The name was changed from "Blau" to "Braunschweig" on 30 June. The plans following the original Case Blue (originally named "Blue I" and "Blue II") were renamed to Operation Clausewitz and Operation Dampfhammer. "Clausewitz" detailed the beginning of the operations of Army Group A in July 1942, "Dampfhammer" the follow-up operations in July 1942.
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Vardar Offensive The Vardar Offensive (Bulgarian: Офанзива при Вардар ) was a World War I military operation, fought between 15 and 29 September 1918. The operation took place during the final stage of the Balkans Campaign. On September 15, a combined force of Serbian, French and Greek troops attacked the Bulgarian-held trenches in Dobro Pole ("Good Field"), at the time part of the Kingdom of Serbia (present day Republic of Macedonia). The assault and the preceding artillery preparation had devastating effects on Bulgarian morale, eventually leading to mass desertions.
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Mortier de 58 mm type 2 The Mortier de 58 mm type 2, also known as the Crapouillot or "little toad" from its appearance, was the standard French medium trench mortar of World War I.
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Chemical weapons in World War I Although the use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, the first large scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I. They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective. The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas, to lethal agents like phosgene, chlorine, and mustard gas. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century. The killing capacity of gas was limited, with only about ninety thousand fatalities from a total of some 1.2 million casualties caused by gas attacks. Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop effective countermeasures, such as gas masks. In the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, its overall effectiveness diminished. The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare, and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives, gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as "the chemist's war" and also the era where "weapons of mass destruction" were created.
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Plan XVII Plan XVII (] ) was the name of a "scheme of mobilization and concentration" that was adopted by the French "Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre" (the peacetime title of the French General Staff) from 1912–1914, to be put into effect by the French Army in the event of war between France and Germany. Though it was not "a prescribed narrative for the campaign" or battle plan, the deployment made possible a prompt invasion of Germany and/or Belgium before Germany could mobilise its reserves, simultaneous to a Russian invasion of East Prussia. The plan was implemented from 7 August 1914, with disastrous consequences for the French, who were defeated in the Battle of the Frontiers (7 August – 13 September) at a cost of 329,000 casualties. The French northern armies were forced into a retreat as far as the Marne river, where in the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September), the German armies were defeated and forced back to the Aisne river.
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Mines on the first day of the Somme The 19 mines on the first day of the Somme comprised a series of underground explosive charges, secretly planted by British tunnelling units beneath the German front lines on the Western Front during the First World War, ready to be detonated in the morning of Saturday 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July – 18 November 1916). The joint explosion of these mines ranks among the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions.
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Zone libre The zone libre (] , "free zone") was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered by the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain based in Vichy, in a relatively unrestricted fashion. To the north lay the "zone occupée" ("occupied zone") in which the powers of Vichy France were severely limited.
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Trebuchet A trebuchet (French "trébuchet") is a type of siege engine which uses a swinging arm to throw a projectile at the enemy.
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BLU-116 The BLU-116 is a United States Air Force bomb, designed as an enhanced "Bunker buster" penetration weapon, designed to penetrate deep into rock or concrete and destroy hard targets.
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Trench shield Trench shields (also called Trench Boxes or Trench Sheets) are steel or aluminum structures used for protecting utility workers while performing their duties within a trench. They are customarily constructed with sidewalls of varying thicknesses held apart by steel or aluminum spreaders. Spreaders can be interchanged to match the width of the trench. The different materials and building designs lead to a variety of depth ratings, i.e. the depth of a trench that the shield can withstand a collapse without buckling. Depth ratings are determined by registered professional engineers.
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Seferberlik Safarbarlik, also written Safarberlik, Seferberlik, Seferbarlik, (Arabic سفربرلك) is the conscription practice used during the wars that the Ottoman government entered during the later phases of the Ottoman Empire during the early 20th century: the Balkan war in 1912-1913 and World War I from 1914-1918.
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Operation Bolero Operation Bolero was the commonly used reference for the code name of the United States military troop buildup in the United Kingdom during World War II in preparation for the initial cross-channel invasion plan known as Operation Roundup, to be implemented in mid-1943, or for its lesser contingency alternative, Operation Sledgehammer, to be executed in the fall of 1942 in the event of German setbacks or to ease Axis pressure on the Eastern Front. ("Bolero" was the code name used in official communications to stand in for "United Kingdom" when describing the theater or movements.) What later became the Bolero plan – the buildup of a strategic air force in Great Britain in preparation for Roundup – was first submitted by Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. Arnold, to General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, on April 12, 1942, and set in motion a huge movement of men and material that laid the groundwork for Operation Overlord.
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Fortified Position of Namur The fortified position of Namur ("position fortifiée de Namur" (PFN)) was established by Belgium following World War I to fortify the traditional invasion corridor between Germany and France through Belgium. The position incorporated the fortress ring of Namur, originally designed by Belgian General Henri Alexis Brialmont to deter an invasion of Belgium by France. The old fortifications consisted of nine forts built between 1888 and 1892 on either side of the Meuse, surrounding Namur. In the years immediately prior to World War II the forts were modernized to address shortcomings exposed during the 1914 Battle of Liège and the short siege of Namur. While the Namur defenses continued to nominally deter France from violating Belgium's neutrality, the seven upgraded forts were intended as a backstop to the fortified position of Liège, which was designed to prevent a second German incursion into Belgium on the way to France. The neutrality policy and fortification programs failed, and the Namur forts saw brief combat during the Battle of Belgium in 1940.
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Bat bomb Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats, which would then roost in eaves and attics in a 20–40 mile radius. The incendiaries would start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper constructions of the Japanese cities that were the weapon's intended target.
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Mark 7 nuclear bomb Mark 7 "Thor" (or Mk-7') was the first tactical fission bomb adopted by US armed forces. It was also the first weapon to be delivered using the toss method with the help of the low-altitude bombing system (LABS). The weapon was tested in Operation Buster-Jangle. To facilitate external carry by fighter-bomber aircraft, Mark 7 was fitted with retractable stabilizer fins. The Mark 7 warhead (W7) also formed the basis of the 30.5 in BOAR rocket, the Mark 90 Betty nuclear depth charge, MGR-1 Honest John rocket, and MGM-5 Corporal ballistic missile. It was also supplied for delivery by Royal Air Force Canberra aircraft assigned to NATO in Germany under the command of SACEUR. This was done under the auspices of Project E, an agreement between the USA and the UK on the RAF carriage of US nuclear weapons. In UK use it was designated 1,650 lb. H.E. M.C.
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15 cm sFH 18 The 15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 18 or sFH 18 (German: "heavy field howitzer, model 18"), nicknamed "Immergrün" ("Evergreen"), was the basic German division-level heavy howitzer during the Second World War, serving alongside the smaller but more numerous 10.5 cm leFH 18. It was based on the earlier, First World War-era design of the 15 cm sFH 13, and while improved over that weapon, it was generally outdated compared to the weapons it faced. It was, however, the first artillery weapon equipped with rocket-assisted ammunition to increase range. The sFH 18 was also used in the self-propelled artillery piece "schwere Panzerhaubitze" 18/1 (more commonly known as "Hummel").
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Battle of Belgium The Battle of Belgium or Belgian Campaign, often referred to within Belgium as the 18 Days' Campaign (French: "Campagne des 18 jours" , Dutch: "Achttiendaagse Veldtocht" ), formed part of the greater Battle of France, an offensive campaign by Germany during the Second World War. It took place over 18 days in May 1940 and ended with the German occupation of Belgium following the surrender of the Belgian Army.
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Paris Gun The Paris Gun (German: "Paris-Geschütz / Pariser Kanone" ) was the name given to a type of German long-range siege gun, several of which were used to bombard Paris during World War I. They were in service from March to August 1918. When the guns were first employed, Parisians believed they had been bombed by a high-altitude Zeppelin, as the sound of neither an aeroplane nor a gun could be heard. They were the largest pieces of artillery used during the war by barrel length, and are considered to be superguns.
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Unexploded ordnance Unexploded ordnance (UXO, sometimes abbreviated as UO), unexploded bombs (UXBs), or explosive remnants of war (ERW) are explosive weapons (bombs, shells, grenades, land mines, naval mines, cluster munition, etc.) that did not explode when they were employed and still pose a risk of detonation, sometimes many decades after they were used or discarded. UXO does not always originate from wars; areas such as military training grounds can also hold significant numbers, even after the area has been abandoned. UXO from World War I continue to be a hazard, with poisonous gas filled munitions still a problem. When unwanted munitions are found, they are sometimes destroyed in controlled explosions, but accidental detonation of even very old explosives also occurs, sometimes with fatal results.