Rock drilling unit

Technical troops underwent significant development during the war. Since previous wars differed substantially, new types of tasks and jobs emerged. New weapons were introduced. This all required extensive technical, engineering support, the framework to this was establishing during the war.

One such special technical task was creating bunkers in the mountains or preparing roads on rocky terrain. Before the war nobody thought that soldiers would need permanent shelter: war was imagined as battles of moving armies. This image changed during the winter of 1914. By the time of Italy’s entry into the war some experience was gathered in the A-H army about the importance of the safe shelters not only for the commading officers but the troops too. Therefore, in May 1915 when the first Italian attacks were launched the Monarchy had already prepared some provisional technical barriers as well as places that were safe from artillery shelling. Since however, the Italian attacks were supported by artillery strikes that had not been precedented before on the Russian front, very soon significantly more defence installations had to be built. This gave the rock drilling units also a lot of work. Trench visitors discover even today some of those bunkers that were built on the Karst plateu by the Italian and A-H armies.

The badge of the technical support troops of the 23rd army corps depicts two soldiers, a warrior with gun and a worker with the great hammer in front of the entry section of a kaverna, a rock shelter against artillery shelling. The background photo sowed a similar place with other technical soldiers and equipment.