Forgotten Tricks of Trench Warfare

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2021-06-14 04:30:03

The German sandbags were a variety of colors, black, pink, yellow, beige, green, etc. They were not arranged in orderly patterns, but scattered haphazardly throughout the parapet. The belief was that the cacophony of contrasting colors made it harder for the human visual processing system to make sense of what it saw. Optical illusions and confusion were the natural result of a chaotic visual display. It was effective.

The Germans were the first to deploy steel plates with loopholes for their snipers to shoot through. These bulletproof shields provided effective cover against small arms fire. In particular, the small loophole was a tiny target for a counter sniper to hit, making the Germans feel quite safe during the early phases of the sniping war.

The British adapted to counter the sniper shields by using large bore big game guns, which packed significantly more wallop than the standard issue army .303. Imagine, there’s some German sniper sitting snug behind his steel shield while an English big game hunter is taking aim with an elephant gun! Later custom sniper and game rifles were also capable of penetrating the single layer steel shield.