Video of artillery barrage in the Somme
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Field Editor ~ GUNS Magazine, Co-Author ~ Serbian Army Weapons of Victory &PH - Kudu Safaris
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This one is well worth sharing. Thank you for sharing this with us benogi.
Amazing footage. I've seen short clips of this film included in a number of documentaries, however I can't recall ever having seen the entire footage in a continuous loop. Run in slow motion, you can see several soldiers go down who don't get up again and there is at least one soldier who can be seen carrying a wounded comrade through the barrage on his back. Love takes many forms and in this case, to risks one's own life to save the life of a comrade is not something most of us will ever be called upon to perform.
While the distance from the camera to the barrage is far enough away as to make the soldiers appear like scurrying rats, you can't help but wonder whose brother, father or husband was killed in the rain of shells? Who did they leave behind? Who was it that wondered for the rest of their lives what had become of their loved ones?
Unique footage of men literally running for their lives.
Food for thought regarding the horrors of war in the trenches of the Great War.
JPS
Amazing footage. I've seen short clips of this film included in a number of documentaries, however I can't recall ever having seen the entire footage in a continuous loop. Run in slow motion, you can see several soldiers go down who don't get up again and there is at least one soldier who can be seen carrying a wounded comrade through the barrage on his back. Love takes many forms and in this case, to risks one's own life to save the life of a comrade is not something most of us will ever be called upon to perform.
While the distance from the camera to the barrage is far enough away as to make the soldiers appear like scurrying rats, you can't help but wonder whose brother, father or husband was killed in the rain of shells? Who did they leave behind? Who was it that wondered for the rest of their lives what had become of their loved ones?
Unique footage of men literally running for their lives.
Food for thought regarding the horrors of war in the trenches of the Great War.
JPS
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A perfect machine gun target!
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Exactly!
Field Editor ~ GUNS Magazine, Co-Author ~ Serbian Army Weapons of Victory &PH - Kudu Safaris
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Yo Gsu,
I have to respectively disagree with you on this one Bud. While we are all familiar with the pre-war annual maneuver photos, such as the example that you have posted above, along with a myriad of other photographs that were published during the war as having been taken in combat, this film footage is IMHO quite different.
I would suggest that we are all familiar with the "live fire" drills where soldiers in training crawled under barbed wire entanglements while machine-guns spray live rounds back and forth a few feet above the entanglements to help prepare the trainees for the day that will eventually come when the machine-guns will be fired at them rather than above their heads.
With that said, the explosions in the film footage look awfully large for a training exercise? I'm guessing 155's to 240s for the larger explosions. A bit much for a training exercise, don't ya think? And if it were a pre-war training exercise, why the lunar landscape that was so typical of No-Man's-Land when everyone expected the war to be one of maneuver that would be over before Christmas of 1914? I don't ever recall there being any pre-war maneuvers that featured trenches and barbed wire entanglements? Or gas shells, which appear in the form of white clouds rather than dirt and dust that drift across the ground following relatively small explosions.
The vantage point of the camera could easily be from a concrete emplacement on high ground overlooking the front. The Germans held the high ground along most of the Western Front after the race to the sea. While I don't believe that the footage is necessarily from the Somme, it could be from any one of a number of different engagements, large or small, that took place at regular intervals along the Western Front over a four year period.
Just my $ .02 worth based on having viewed lots of WWI documentaries that have tended to "borrow" film footage from the war, before the war and via Hollywood shortly there-after.
Respectfully submitted,
John
I have to respectively disagree with you on this one Bud. While we are all familiar with the pre-war annual maneuver photos, such as the example that you have posted above, along with a myriad of other photographs that were published during the war as having been taken in combat, this film footage is IMHO quite different.
I would suggest that we are all familiar with the "live fire" drills where soldiers in training crawled under barbed wire entanglements while machine-guns spray live rounds back and forth a few feet above the entanglements to help prepare the trainees for the day that will eventually come when the machine-guns will be fired at them rather than above their heads.
With that said, the explosions in the film footage look awfully large for a training exercise? I'm guessing 155's to 240s for the larger explosions. A bit much for a training exercise, don't ya think? And if it were a pre-war training exercise, why the lunar landscape that was so typical of No-Man's-Land when everyone expected the war to be one of maneuver that would be over before Christmas of 1914? I don't ever recall there being any pre-war maneuvers that featured trenches and barbed wire entanglements? Or gas shells, which appear in the form of white clouds rather than dirt and dust that drift across the ground following relatively small explosions.
The vantage point of the camera could easily be from a concrete emplacement on high ground overlooking the front. The Germans held the high ground along most of the Western Front after the race to the sea. While I don't believe that the footage is necessarily from the Somme, it could be from any one of a number of different engagements, large or small, that took place at regular intervals along the Western Front over a four year period.
Just my $ .02 worth based on having viewed lots of WWI documentaries that have tended to "borrow" film footage from the war, before the war and via Hollywood shortly there-after.
Respectfully submitted,
John
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There are several locations in this bit of footage, but I am still not convinced any of it is combat footage. At 3:17 you can see a wall or window sill in the bottom of the frame, I do not think this looks like a bunker or emplacement, as there is no sign of damage to the wall. the early part of the footage is af very flat land, and you usually do not have that kind of high ground with no sign of elevated terrain in the view. The Germans had elaborate training grounds to prepare for attacks and familiarize troops with live fire as you mentioned, and I think that the explosions are not out of the realm of what would be used. There is also not much indication of explosions out of the area being filmed. It is interesting footage, but I do not think it can verified as actual combat footage. The distant footage I would think is possible, but not the footage shot down on the battle field, it just looks too much like the photos from the training grounds.
Best
gus
Best
gus
Field Editor ~ GUNS Magazine, Co-Author ~ Serbian Army Weapons of Victory &PH - Kudu Safaris
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We can agree to disagree. The soldier in the upper left at 46 to 48 suddenly decided he needed a serious rest when the shell explodes behind him. The segments of film are obviously pieced together since they show different angles and distance from the location of the camera. Why not film continuously from the same location if it's a training film?
We aren't watching the typical documentary footage where scenes from "All Quiet on the Western Front" is spliced in.
Always a pleasure Gsu.
Warmest regards,
John
We aren't watching the typical documentary footage where scenes from "All Quiet on the Western Front" is spliced in.
Always a pleasure Gsu.
Warmest regards,
John
Field Editor ~ GUNS Magazine, Co-Author ~ Serbian Army Weapons of Victory &PH - Kudu Safaris
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It's about now that I should scream "YOUR MOTHER WEARS ARMY BOOTS!"......But then I remembered that like you, your Mother might be a farmer as well, in which case you would respond........
"Of course she does!"
That takes all of the fun out of it!!!
"Of course she does!"
That takes all of the fun out of it!!!
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I actually agree with Gus. That footage looks like the type taken at training grounds during the war. My guess when divisions went through the training IAW the 1917 Infantry manual.
Joe Sweeney
Joe Sweeney
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Gents,
Old Infantry slug here , never been in a Artillery attack but have been in a mortar attack a few times. That said, I have no idea what that looks like on video , my ass was chasing my face nose diving like a lawn dart into the ground. From that vantage point , it sure felt like there was no good place to move to.
If this You Tube is a training video from back in the day, they played tight margins on Danger Close in the training guidance !!
Old Infantry slug here , never been in a Artillery attack but have been in a mortar attack a few times. That said, I have no idea what that looks like on video , my ass was chasing my face nose diving like a lawn dart into the ground. From that vantage point , it sure felt like there was no good place to move to.
If this You Tube is a training video from back in the day, they played tight margins on Danger Close in the training guidance !!
Field Editor ~ GUNS Magazine, Co-Author ~ Serbian Army Weapons of Victory &PH - Kudu Safaris
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Roger that milprileb!
I agree to disagree with Joe as well as Gsu. The ordnance going off in these photos are IMHO just a tad to powerful for a training exercise. The chap I mentioned before up above drops like a sack of potatoes (I'm using terminology that I know Gsu will understand!) and doesn't so much as flinch thereafter.
To me, the heavier blasts look like 155s to perhaps 240s. If the Germans trained with blasts of this magnitude, they probably lost more soldiers in training than in combat!
While there is a whole lot of bogus photos and film clips from every war, every once in a while the photos and film are in fact the real deal.
To each his own opinion.
Warmest regards,
JPS
PS - At least I can swear to the fact first hand that while I don't know about Gsu Mother, I know for a fact that Maggie does NOT wear Army boots! The part I still don't understand is why such a classy Lady as Maggie settled for a hayseed, clod hopping, ambulance driving Neanderthal like Gsu???
I can't explain it T.P.?........Can you????? :>O
I agree to disagree with Joe as well as Gsu. The ordnance going off in these photos are IMHO just a tad to powerful for a training exercise. The chap I mentioned before up above drops like a sack of potatoes (I'm using terminology that I know Gsu will understand!) and doesn't so much as flinch thereafter.
To me, the heavier blasts look like 155s to perhaps 240s. If the Germans trained with blasts of this magnitude, they probably lost more soldiers in training than in combat!
While there is a whole lot of bogus photos and film clips from every war, every once in a while the photos and film are in fact the real deal.
To each his own opinion.
Warmest regards,
JPS
PS - At least I can swear to the fact first hand that while I don't know about Gsu Mother, I know for a fact that Maggie does NOT wear Army boots! The part I still don't understand is why such a classy Lady as Maggie settled for a hayseed, clod hopping, ambulance driving Neanderthal like Gsu???
I can't explain it T.P.?........Can you????? :>O
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Uh, would that be about why a classy lady like Maggie allows herself to be seen with Gus or whether the film is a real battlefield record? Both are unanswerable. Then, of course, I think the photo Gus posted in post #6 is of real action in Belgium in 1914. Hey, it could be.:?
benogi, if you are still around could you ask Olga to help us with these answers?
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