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Tactics and Strategy
In January, 1917, General Arthur Currie, along with a number of other
Allied officers, attended a series of French lectures given about tactics used
at the Battle of Verdun. That assault had made use of extensive rehearsal, two
assaulting waves supported by artillery and the use of indirect harassing fire.
It also featured platoons supported by specialist units and a novel sharing of
tactical information, including maps, with front-line soldiers.
Currie, though not entirely convinced the French had all the answers, took some
of the lessons to heart and presented a plan for a Vimy Ridge assault that depended
on minute-by-minute coordination of carefully targetted artillery and well-briefed
and well-rested platoons. The Canadian Corps built a scale replica of the Vimy
terrain based on aerial maps and sightings. Currie, knowing that knocking out
the Germans' big guns was vital to the plan, employed two new methods for |
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pinpointing the location of enemy guns: flash spotting and sound ranging. Both
relied on the triangulation of muzzle flashes or the sound of the guns themselves.
This, along with improvements in artillery stabilization and targeting, meant
that the Canadian Corps could knock out the enemies' guns with great speed and
accuracy.
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Happy
Canadians
Fighting
together for the first time, Canada's four divisions did what the French and
British could not do. They took Vimy Ridge in a skillful and courageous battle
that put Canada on the world map. |
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