This attitude made a direct contribution to operational victories of Germany in Russia, Romania, Serbia and Italy, but it resulted in failure in the West.

Thus the German officers on the Western Front found themselves in need of resolving the static situation caused by trench warfare on the battlefield.

The first was the belief, mainly held by Erich von Falkenhayn, that tactical action alone, the mere killing of enemy soldiers, was a sufficient means to achieve the strategic goal.

The second was the idea, emerging from experience of countless "limited target attacks" and forays into the trenches, that combat had become such a difficult task that operational considerations had to be subordinated to tactical ones.

With the use of well-trained soldiers, commanded by NCOs with autonomous decision-making capacity, an attempt was made to traverse no man's land and to break through enemy lines in predefined points in order to allow subsequent waves to liquidate the now confused and isolated opponent, opening large gaps in its defensive systems and then resuming maneuver warfare, which would have allowed Germany to win the conflict.

This process either failed, or at most gained only a short distance, while incurring enormous casualties, and the armies settled into trench warfare.

The first experimental pioneer assault unit of the German army formed in the spring of 1915, founded by Major Calsow and later commanded and refined by Hauptmann Willy Rohr.

Allied versions of infiltration tactics were first formally proposed by French Army captain André Laffargue [fr].

[8][9][10][11] The distinction between the German and French tactics was that Laffargue recommended using waves of infantry to attack despite the high casualties that would ensue.

The new organisation allowed the platoon to make best use of the trench-fighting equipment that had arrived in adequate quantities since the beginning of the Battle of the Somme.

They were also supported by sophisticated artillery flash spotting and sound-ranging, something the German Army never perfected, instead relying on the aural method with ever more accurate measuring devices.

[1] The new tactics developed by Captain Rohr, building much on his own previous experiences from the front, was based on the use of squad sized stormtroops ("Sturmtruppen" or "Stoßtruppen"), supported by a number of heavy support weapons and field artillery that was to be coordinated at the lowest level possible and rolling up enemy trenches using troops armed with hand grenades.

The long and impractical épée-style Seitengewehr 98 bayonet was replaced by shorter models, and supplemented with trench knives, clubs, and other melee weapons.

However, the German advance failed to achieve the complete breakthrough necessary for a decisive result and in July the Allies began their Hundred Days Offensive.

[22] According to Vanguard of Nazism by Robert G. L. Waite and Male Fantasies by Klaus Theweleit, some of the psychological and social aspects of the Stormtrooper experience found their way into the paramilitary wings of every political party during the Weimar Republic, which were largely made up of World War I veterans and younger recruits whom they trained.

These squads were named after the specially trained forces of Russian army formed in 1886 and were used to protect against ambushes, to perform reconnaissance and for low intensity fights in no-man's-land.

Austro-Hungarian High army command (Armeeoberkommando, AOK) realised the need for special forces and decided to draw on German experience.

With the aid of German instructors, the troops were trained in the use of weapons such as flamethrowers, known to the Turks as "hellfire machines", and 7.58 cm Minenwerfer mortars.

[24] During the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, especially in Sinai and Palestine Campaign, Ottomans utilized this storm battalion which formed part of the Yıldırım Army Group using the latest Western Front infiltration tactics and close combat gear with concentrated fire of artillery and machine guns.

[25] A notable action by this unit was at the Battle of El Burj on 1 December 1917, when they dislodged two squadrons of the 3rd Australian Light Horse from their defensive positions on a ridge, but were halted and isolated when British reinforcements arrived.