Use Of Smoke In Ww1

[firefly1]

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Reading up on Operation Michael it would seem that morning fog on a couple of days late in the offensive had a very disruptive effect on both attacker and defender.

 

This led me to ask just how much "smoke" was used as an offensive/defensive measure to try to disrupt the other side ?

 

It would seem that White Phosphorous was used (at least from 1916) and I am sure that there were other agents that could have been used.

 

Any ideas ?

 

Thanks.

 

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[Richard Lindquist]

The British Special Companies for gas warfare also used smoke for screening often mixing it in with the gas cloud. Like everything being discharged from cylinders or projectors, it was very dependent on the wind. Smoke was especially ineffective on the frist day of the Somme.

[JWB]

arrse strikes again!

 

http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/ww1-clearing-dugouts-with-fumite-bombs.177403/

[Argus]

The principal visual screening agent used in WWI by the Cw (at least) was dirt/dust, and by the end it was the key element of battle. Half the point of the creeping barrage was the curtain of crap it threw up, and the way it did that.

 

If you look at the arty plans from late 16 on the creeper wasn't just a single line most of the time but two or three (generally) lines of different densities, moving at different paces at different ranges. While the barrage line being followed by the infantry progressed steadily, the others lines marched up and down the axis of advance, jumping, hunting backwards and forwards, combining, dividing and standing. The result combined visual screening with, wire cutting, suppression and deception, to the observer it was hard to pick out which line actually covered the infantry and identify the actual threat. Like a series of curtains lifting and falling, for the enemy observer there was always another barrage behind the one he could see, and when it shifted, it was anyone's guess if the one behind was the real one or just another curtain. Getting it wrong brought the defenders up from cover too soon and exposed them to both the false barrages (if they should jump or drop and that's why they were trying to do) and the real one which usually combined the bulk of guns on the critical lifts on to the objective lines.

 

shane