Talk:Military technology during World War I

From WP:RfD:


 * Military technology during World War I &rarr; Technology during World War I - Please delete Military technology during World War I as I have seen to that this very short stub has been merged into Technology during World War I, and I have fixed all redirection issues by checking off the list "what links here". Thus no articles link to Military technology during World War I anymore, it is just a redirection page hanging in the void. Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 23:28, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, if content has been merged the redirect should be preserved to keep the history under the GFDL intact. - SimonP 23:46, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd say keep for WP:RfD #2, to prevent creation of a duplicate article. Noel (talk) 01:36, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

This article was not about all military technology of 1914-1918, but only about the changes in it (thus the word "during"). Certainly it's fair to get rid of the questionable word "advancement" in the title although it has some sarcastic value, but the replacement would be "escalation", making the title "technological escalation during World War I" (and another on technological escalation during World War II") more correctly describe this. Then the title "military technology" could refer only to the actual hardware, describing it in detail, which this article does not, and should not.

Three levels of abstraction are appropriate here: the grand strategy and diplomacy of the wars, which is history more or less, the military science and technology that did not obviously drive events (when they do, lay out the history here by all means) but had from time to time huge tactical impacts, and the equipment and tactics that were actually used by real people to do real things (like kill people). Trying to mix the levels seems like a bad idea, as they each need a separate treatment with reference to quite different things. I wouldn't want, for instance, to read a detailed analysis of the German vs. British rifle designs in the article on technological escalation, but I *would* want that in one on the war equipment and tactics.

There will be overlap, but it's manageable, since it's fairly obvious when an historical level event really was altered by science and technology (like Hiroshima and Nagasaki which at least was a major factor in choosing the endpoint of the war). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.114.34 (talk • contribs) 16:46, 24 September 2003