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Battle of the Somme - did British soldiers "have" to carry heavy packs?

On the First Day of the Battle of the Somme, many British soldiers were ordered to walk across No Man's Land towards the German trenches carrying heavy packs containing equipment for repairing the enemy trenches once they were taken. However, from what I know, this severely damaged the coordination between the British and the French, who were much faster to reach and attack German trenches, as well as weighing down the soldiers and hampering them, and contributed significantly to the failure of the offensive to be as effective as designed and to the huge number of casualties (c. 60,000 on the first day).

The generals' decision for the soldiers to carry heavy packs was maybe a big and fatal error; however, not being very knowledgeable on the Somme, I'm not sure whether there was really any alternative - did the soldiers necessarily have to have had the equipment with them if/when they took the trenches, or could, for example, some of this equipment have been delivered later?

Thanks!

Reply 1

Mazzini

Original post by MrLatinNerd

AFAIK, the main problem was the fact that the week-long shelling of the German lines didn't work. The idea was that the British artillery would shell the German trenches and destroy them, but many shells did not hit their intended target and of the ones that did, many of them did not explode. German trenches were also a lot more dug in and secure than the British generals expected.

Essentially, if the shelling before the battle had worked, then the plan of walking over No Man's Land to capture the German lines would've worked.