Contrast of Wwi and Ww2

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Today we think of wars lasting only days not years, America’s invasion of Iraq was accomplished in less than a month. With such speed and lethality of our army today it is hard to imagine that during the First World War soldiers would fight over yards for months at a time. It wasn’t until the Second World War that our modern battle techniques were developed that enabled the United States to achieve such military supremacy. Americans have taken for granted that war used to be a bloody affair, victory was when more than half of the soldiers survived. Understanding the great world wars can be done best by contrasting the differences in technology, how the military commanders valued life, and the tactics used during battle. At the start of World War One a major difference to world war two was the common weapon. Soldiers were issued a bolt action rifle that was built on a simple design. This weapon was a slow firing weapon that focused on accuracy not on rate of fire. A rate of fire of twelve rounds per minute was considered to be a peek level and only highly trained soldiers could achieve this level. Next we will look at the ability to transport supplies and equipment. During World War One the common means of transportation was the horse drawn wagons. The speed that supplies could be delivered by horses was weeks in the best of conditions. This forced the armies of World War One to move considerably slower. During World War One the airplane was thought to be a novelty and was mostly used to scout the enemy positions or to fight each other. At the start of World War Two a major difference was what the soldier carried. The common soldier was issued Semiautomatic rifles that found a balance between range and rate of fire that is still the standard today. The rate of fire of this weapon was thirty rounds per minute and even the greenest soldier could maintain this rate

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