Battlefield 1..its not that good to this history buff and here is why (long winded WW1 rant and fact drop)

You probably dont care, but I do so here it is.

Where the fuck did these weapons come from. Why is 90% of the firearms in this came semi-auto rifles and smg's? The majority of those weapons were developed in the 1920's as a response to the slaughter that took place in the trenches.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Machine Gun (a mounted device originally on a carriage) was a "crew served weapon". Up until WW1 they were a new device that can be used to help change a battle's outcome but were not relied upon to carry the weight.

During WW1, these machine guns had advanced to the point where an infantry company could have a couple of these on their line (I suggest you watch Episode 1 of "Our World War")

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Machine Gun (a mounted device originally on a carriage) was a "crew served weapon". Up until WW1 they were a new device that can be used to help change a battle's outcome but were not relied upon to carry the weight.

During WW1, these machine guns had advanced to the point where an infantry company could have a couple of these on their line (I suggest you watch Episode 1 of "Our World War") which could sweep through a company of riflemen with ease. The problem..they had to be mounted. They were heavy.

The trenches would form because a dug in line of machine-gun pillboxes really tore up the massed infantry units in the open. As they were pinned down by the machine guns, artillery would be called in on them. So the grunts would dig and dig and dig building trenches.

Moving onto artillery. This is the French 75. A small enough gun that made it rapidly mobile in WW1 terms. It was what stopped the German Advance in the west. These rapid firing guns caused the germans to dig. Better so, weapons like this and the German Krupp mortars caused the invention of the helmet.

British Broodie Helmet.
As I stated above, when the advance faltered, the troops dug in. They would be plastered by artillery. Until this point, they wore hats and soft caps. The german spike helmet was a decorative helmet and not actually useful. In 1915 (essentially after 1 year of banging away at one another) Helmets such as the one above were invented to help cut down on TBI's and head wounds from artillery shrap.
The Germans would have the more modern Stahlhelm that they would again use in WW2 and modern militaries would adop a version of (helps protect the neck) . But this was ground breaking technology.

Onto tanks! So as the war went on, the German and Allied trench lines got more..impressive. The only way to take them would be massed infantry charges after an artillery barrage sometimes of several days. Then the poor SOB's would have to climb out of their trench, advance across the desolate wasteland called "No Mans Land" in between the trenches, fight into the trench and capture it and then hold it if possible. With machine guns and artillery facing you, this was a sonofabtich of a task. Germans would string huge fields of barbed wire infront of their trenches to slow down the allies (allies did it too)

To break this up, tanks (called so to confuse the germans who thought they were water carrying devices before they were encoutnered on the battlefield).

These beasts would advance across no mans land, breach the wire and trenches and use machine guns and cannon fire to tear up enenmy trenches so the infantry could cross.

Sounds awesome right? And fun in BF1?

WRONG! These devices were horrible to be a member of. The interiors were cramped. The noise was deafening. The engine fumes would cause some crews to nearly asphyxiate. Yes you were safe in them from enemy fire, until they turned a field gun on you and it cracked your tank open like a can of spam.

The tanks also moved only slightly above walking pace. They were lumbersome and broke down.

Another invention used to try and break the static trench lines was chemical warfare. Not much needs to be said about this other than it was fucking horrible. Before gas masks were the major response, chemical soaked gauze pads over the mouth would be all some got. Others would be forced to urinate on rags and hold them over their mouths to keep from ingesting the chemicals.
Gas didnt do much once it was countered by the gas mask yet both sides used it often.

Now onto SMG's.....

This here is the ubiquitous M1921 Thompson Sub Machine Gun. Favorited by gangsters in the Prohibition Era and Clint Eastwood in Kelly's Hero's.

This weapon was designed to help break up trench warfare. After all we talked about above, the slogging was still slow. The standard infantryman had a bolt action rifle still. These weapons would be light, fast firing and could clear a trench out in a matter of seconds.

The problem is, it never saw WW1 combat. Just as it was getting ready to ship, the Krauts threw in the towel.

This is the German MP18 which did see service in WW1 in the final months on the German side with about 5000 of them seeing action. Not really the war winner the Krauts wished it were.

Villar Perosa M15 was used by the ITI's but mainly as a mounted weapon. Not a true SMG and not really a battlefield winner.

There are a few others that I am not going to mention but the majority of guns in Battlefield 1 showed up at the END of the war. After years of static fighting.

Here is why the real SMG's and those weapons never saw the true potential

The 1918 Spring Offensive. In 1917, the Soviet Revolution was breaking out in Russia and the Russians signed a cease fire agreement with the Kaiser.

This allowed the Germans to ship their forces from the east to the west and launch a massive assault along their line. They did so and nearly broke through the lines.
Unfortunatly for the Germans, when they over-ran the Allied lines, they over-ran our vast supple dumps. The Germans had been hungry. Their production of food was down and their people starving. So like a good hungry person, the germans would be slowed down as they ransacked the massive stockpikes of food, wine, etc.

The offensive ground down. It chewed up countless numbers of Germans, allowing the Allied to launch their own offensive in 1918 that would see the German main line crumble. As the Germans fell back from offensive after offensive, they decided to wave the flag.

Better to stop the war before it reached Germany, right?

Other problems I have with BF1 are the story being so short that you think the war was one in a weekend. You dont have any attachment to the characters because you play as them for like 45 minutes. Why didnt they include the massive battles of the Somme, passchendaele, Verdun, hell Tannenberg would be acceptable.

You gave Gallipoli 3 missions that made the 430k casualites feel like 430 casualties. The maps were under populated for campagin.

If you want a WW1 videogame, go play verdun. They got it mostly right.