Now, they might not have been invented yet, although i find it hard to understand how, they had mustard gas after all.. Why not just bombard "no mans land" with smoke grenades and walk across? Sure some days were windy, but not all of them surely.. There is a flaw in my idea, i just cant see it.. please enlighten me.
Why not just bombard "no mans land" with smoke grenades and walk across?
With the umpteen-million pre-sighted pieces of artillery, machine guns, and mortars that already had the terrain in front of them gridded out and pre-sighted, all defenders would have to do would be note on what portion of the map the smoke was covering, and call back to have that area bombarded.
Couple this with the fact that the attackers' artillery (also with ranges and coordinates pre-calculated) would be unable to see their own infantry after a certain point, and if the attackers were ahead of schedule or hung-up on a particular obstacle, there was the very real possibility they'd blast their own guys.
Smoke grenades (and smoke artillery shells) were a very real thing, and were used as concealment for an advance plenty of times. All throughout the war. But it wasn't some magic end-all solution for getting across between enemy lines. Bullets and shells penetrate smoke just fine.