Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage

Re:Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage by Someone on Monday July 04, 2016 @07:59PM (#12033650)

There also were mining operations at enormous scale (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_on_the_first_day_of_th...)

About a year later, the battle of Messines (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messi... ) saw larger mines, some of which with over 40,000 kg of explosives.

Five of them weren't detonated. One of those exploded in 1955 after a lightning strike. Most likely, four others are still lying below ground. It's anybody's guess whether they still are dangerous and might detonate one day.

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Re:Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage by camtarn on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @06:40AM (#12035519)

There's a good BBC article on it here, with a lot of detail about the people behind the tunnelling schemes, and the horror of digging in complete silence, listening out for enemy miners who might be just inches away:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36685270

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Re:Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage by pbhjpbhj on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @09:09AM (#12036125)

Glad you posted that, didn't know where I'd read it. Good read on an aspect of the trench war I hadn't heard about before.

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