Most Dangerous Roles in War

Perhaps some of them actually learned

The tunnel systems that the Vietnamese made was pretty insane and impressive. They had kitchens and shit in parts of them, they were so big and developed. But crawling down into one of them had to be the thing of nightmares. Like, even if you had done it dozens of times, it was probably horrifying every single time. I wonder what the survival rate of the tunnel rats was.

>What are some of the most dangerous jobs or roles a soldier could specialize in or be tasked to do in the history of warfare?
Paratroopers

Surely these guys have to rank up there, right?

Especially underwater EOD guys...

Being a member of any part of Italy's military during WWII should count.

I've looked like that plenty of times, and I can't say I've ever been in a war or had to crawl down pitch-black tunnels looking for Vietnamese.

>Being a member of any part of Italy's military during WWII should count.
>finally have enough and capitulate
>Germans bust down your door, occupy your country and take almost half a million prisoners
Being Italy is suffering

Wasn't being a powder monkey in the age of sail generally considered quite dangerous?

Italy was the Austria-Hungary of WWII, except worse.

Much, much worse

How were they so bad? Like, they should have at least been mediocre.

Not really. Italy didn't take that many casualties in comparison to the other Axis powers.

Absolutely zero motivation.

Not sure. They're rarely under fire.

Everyone is under fire. It's called the sun

Apparently flame-throwers had a pretty high KIA rate. Depends how you used them, of course -- best for mopping up operations.

But they're obviously fragile, somewhat slow, need a good line of fire AND be close enough for the flame stream -- and above all, a prime target for drawing enemy fire. Who wants to let a flame thrower get close enough to roast you alive? Absolutely no one.

It's also pretty horrific mentally knowing you're not just putting a bullet throw some poor fuck's face, but burning him alive, with all the screams and smells that entails.

Anti-tank mines aren't sensitive enough to be set off by skinny Iranian teenagers.

>nothing pearshonnel, lad

Everything was. But also largely because it was a "first job" for fresh recruits -- meaning 12-13 year old boys, who were easy target for being passed around for their sweet tight fresh boipussi by the older more salty sailers.

With a bit of modification they can be made as sensitive as any AP mine.

Why didn't they just feed explosives down the tunnels using little motor vehicles and explode them?

Very counterproductive, you don't want wildlife to clear your anti-tank minefield.

Not him, but is mining usually focused to counter vehicles? I'd imagine that in any sort of operation any infantry not supported by vehicles aren't going to last long so you don't need to focus on them.

tunnelers in wwI... not only did they basically do what the tunnel rats did but they had to dig the tunnels themselves, sometimes into the tunnels that were being dug by the enemy tunnelers... they also dug the huge mines that were filled with explosives underneath the enemy lines. these poor bastards must've had balls of of titanium or something...

Because they didn't have said vehicles in the middle of the jungle. And would have needed sophisticated cameras and lighting equipment attached that were either impractically costly or didn't really exist yet.

Building your own tunnels certainly has its risks, but you don't generally have to be worry about being ambushed or falling into a concealed pit trap of snakes and stakes coated in shit in that pitch blackness.

They just needed fucking walkie-talkies and a stick of wire dynamite tied to the little remote vehicles. You don't need fucking cameras or light, when the vesicle gets stuck or your hear viet cong voices, detonate the thing.

Suppressed revolvers what the actual fuck? I thought that was impossible.

Big deal.

Depends on what you mean by the most "dangerous". If risk of suicide counts, then modern air traffic controllers, military police, and intel operators are pretty high up there. Unless I'm misremembering my statistics, more military members from those three careers kill themselves every year than were killed per year in Afghanistan and/or Iraq.

Mining is not used to "counter" anything. It's area denial. You lay a mine-field and do your best to ensure your enemy knows exactly where it is so they have to divert around it or lose troops and materiel going through it. It is logistical warfare.

The point was to get as much of the tunnel as possible. If you just detonated as soon as your vehicle got stuck in a trap or found by Viets, you wouldn't do much. It's a job that, at the time, required manpower.

Not impossible, just very difficult since the cylinder gap is an issue. You can suppress virtually anything with a muzzle suppressor, it's just a question of efficiency.

Intel? That seems weird. I worked with Intel guys and most of them sat in comfy rooms looking at lots of paperwork and making it into actionable intelligence or looking at photos to make sense of the Intel, erc... And then gave briefings. That seems like one of the more cushy jobs.

And MPs too, for that matter. Most of them just patrol around bases and very few leave the wire. It's not much different than begin a regular cop most of the time.

Or WWI for that matter

From what I know of reading "Journey to the end of night" by Céline, being in a cuirassier unit (or any cavalry unit) in the battle of Frontiers in WWI was extremely dangerous since you were sent out to plug the holes in the front whenever your army had to retreat. It basically meant exposing yourself to the roughest of the fighting up and down the front.

Read it, it's good.

>That colonel, I could see, was a monster. Now I knew it for sure, he was worse than a dog, he couldn't conceive of his own death. At the same time I realized that there must be plenty of brave men like him in our army, and just as many no doubt in the army facing us. How many, I wondered. One or two million, say several millions in all? The thought turned my fear to panic. With such people this infernal lunacy could go on for ever. . . . Why would they stop? Never had the world seemed so implacably doomed.

>Could I, I thought, be the last coward on earth? How terrifying! . . . All alone with two million stark raving heroic madmen, armed to the eyeballs? With and without helmets, without horses, on motorcycles, bellowing, in cars, screeching, shooting, plotting, flying, kneeling, digging, taking cover, bounding over trails, root-toot-tooting, shut up on earth as if it were a loony bin, ready to demolish everything on it, Germany, France, whole continents, everything that breathes, destroy destroy, madder than mad dogs, worshiping their madness (which dogs don't), a hundred, a thousand times madder than a thousand dogs, and a lot more vicious! A pretty mess we were in! No doubt about it, this crusade I'd let myself in for was the apocalypse!

>You can be a virgin in horror the same as in sex. How, when I left the Place Clichy, could I have imagined such horror? Who could have suspected, before getting really into the war, all the ingredients that go to make up the rotten, heroic, good-for-nothing soul of man?
Hnnggg.

If I was an American and I experienced Japs torturing, mutilating and killing my buddies I would turn them into Yakitori.

Berserkers, Scouts, Spec ops (Rangers,Seals,Berets,Delta).
I imagine basic footman was pretty dangerous, but they aren't niche.

>area denial
>not just putting them in mounds above ground
>not just pointing your guns in that direction
Mines counter tanks, dummy.

it has been somewhat common to just put infantry fuse on the anti tank mine (or lets say every 4th to frustrate the sappers) - et voilaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Pretty sure WWII bomber pilots had it pretty rough. Especially the ball turret guys that had no easy way to escape if need be and would get fucking flattened in a crash landing.

I often wonder if it was more impressive to survive as a bomber crewman or a fighter pilot during the second world war. They both seem dangerous as fuck.

in WW2 captured flamethrower operators were almost universally summarily executed by every side. No one wants to deal with that shit

Being a French soldier during the Saar Offensive and encountering German S-Mines for the first time would be both terrifying and dangerous because you'd have no idea what hit you or how to deal with it and those things shredded through infantry. They took ten times more casualties than the Germans.
youtube.com/watch?v=bupkzPfERLA

Ball turret guys had the lowest casualty rate of all the crew members, ackthually.

Same with snipers. Except that still happens sometimes.

>on a bomber in the first place
>most exposed position
>no way to quick escape
>often have to remove parachute to fit in ball turret
>freezing cold
>ball turret material can obstruct your view
>landing in an emergency could literally kill you
How did they manage the lowest casualty rates? Lmao, that's impressive if true.

>Berserkers

Tunnel rats.

Perhaps not the most dangerous but being a centurion in a roman legion was pretty dangerous overall. It's in the job description to be cruel to your own men so that they fear you more than the enemy leading you to be in a very exposed position whenever the army decides to mutiny for the 33 time this year. You're also required to be brave as fuck which in combination with the forward centurion leading from the front lead to unproportionally high rates of casuality amongst them.

Hell, the two Rome-series characters Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus are based on the crazy Gimli vs Legolas-like exploit of two centurions.

>Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Book 5, Chapter 44:

In that legion there were two very brave men, centurions, who were now approaching the first ranks, T. Pulfio, and L. Varenus. These used to have continual disputes between them which of them should be preferred, and every year used to contend for promotion with the utmost animosity. When the fight was going on most vigorously before the fortifications, Pulfio, one of them, says, "Why do you hesitate, Varenus? or what [better] opportunity of signalizing your valor do you seek? This very day shall decide our disputes." When he had uttered these words, he proceeds beyond the fortifications, and rushes on that part of the enemy which appeared the thickest. Nor does Varenus remain within the rampart, but respecting the high opinion of all, follows close after. Then, when an inconsiderable space intervened, Pulfio throws his javelin at the enemy, and pierces one of the multitude who was running up, and while the latter was wounded and slain, the enemy cover him with their shields, and all throw their weapons at the other and afford him no opportunity of retreating. The shield of Pulfio is pierced and a javelin is fastened in his belt. This circumstance turns aside his scabbard and obstructs his right hand when attempting to draw his sword: the enemy crowd around him when [thus] embarrassed. 1/2

2/2
His rival runs up to him and succors him in this emergency. Immediately the whole host turn from Pulfio to him, supposing the other to be pierced through by the javelin. Varenus rushes on briskly with his sword and carries on the combat hand to hand, and having slain one man, for a short time drove back the rest: while he urges on too eagerly, slipping into a hollow, he fell. To him, in his turn, when surrounded, Pulfio brings relief; and both having slain a great number, retreat into the fortifications amid the highest applause. Fortune so dealt with both in this rivalry and conflict, that the one competitor was a succor and a safeguard to the other, nor could it be determined which of the two appeared worthy of being preferred to the other.

>do something retarded, putting yourself and fellow soldiers into great danger, just so you can get a promotion and people applaud you and give you attention

Funniest part is that such behaviour was strictly against roman military ethos, yet it still happened all the fucking time and (when successful) it was inevitably praised.
Same thing happens nowadays btw. You can only do so much quelling of human natural behaviours.

That's not what happened at all. In fact it's quite clear that they greatly helped to saved the camp if you read the rest.

>What are some of the most dangerous jobs or roles a soldier could specialize in or be tasked to do in the history of warfare?

Sub rogue.

Still happens these days we recently had a thread on \k\ featuring a chucklefuck commander getting several of his men killed and maimed by "showing inititiative". With only a few casualties they get away with a shit happens report. When they succeed they get a nice mark on their file or promotion. The Roman army and modern militiaries are really not that different when it comes to retardation and promotion pressure. You should see the stuff that goes on in the current day NCO and officer corps when it comes to the next stripe. As far as the suck is concerned not much changed in the past 2000 years especially in the infantry.

Flamethrower

>The Roman army and modern militiaries are really not that different when it comes to retardation and promotion pressure.

Yeah but knowing your insides could turn to jelly or worse at any moment can't exactly be a good feeling.

> Place Clichy
Holly shit that's exactly where I live
Guess I've found my next book to read

Assigned to penal battalion.

>most dangerous
Propably the role of a colored woman in the war against misogyny by the white man.

>French
>hasn't read the second best French author of the early XXth century
Ah le PariGOT.

I'm pretty sure it's a flash suppressor rather than a sound suppressor.

There were experiments with making silenced revolvers for tunnel rats, but I don't think that's what was featured in that picture.

forgot my picture

>his smile and optimism, gone

This.

Place DE Clichy you illiterate. No wonder you live there...

Why didn't they use artillery to clear the minefield?

Being one of the poor naval aviators assigned to a Dauntless deathtrap of an airplane was kind of shitty as far as piloting goes.

Or even machine guns?

I once heard that Grenadiers suffered disproportionate casualty rates because they tended to be the first ones going through the breach in 18th century sieges. Commanders tended to use the larger Grenadiers for that purpose and supposedly wiped out several regiments doing that.

USAF PJs

I thought there was little dispute that unexploded bomb disposal was the most dangerous job.

youtube.com/watch?v=QRuJAUIn-2M

RAF Bomber pilots, navigators and gunners had the highest casualty rates on at least the western front - 60,000 bomber crewman dead.

Nah, those psychopath fuckers all liked it. All the killing, raping, torture (physical and psychological), looting. It's like a weasel in the chicken coop, pure gleeful heaven.

Well, that was their role -- shock troops of the day, basically.

they had high test from the massive balls

French or Spanish sailor in the Napoleonic Wars

Shells are expensive martyrs are cheap

>read about tunnel rats
>fascinating
>see there's a movie about them and get excited
>directed by Uwe Bill
FUCK!

Maybe there's some good books on them instead...

From what I've read, there was a Marine corps flamethrower unit on Iwo Jima that had a 92% casualty rate. The life expectancy was 4 minutes. Other sources say the lifespan was 10 minutes for a flamethrower operator.

Fuck. That.

kamikaze or suicide bomber obviously.

I'd imagine being a WW1 tanker would have been highly unpleasant considering all the enemy fire would be directly focused on you.

Pasdarans and Basijs would often be send in human wave attacks against Iraqi fortifications. Many have their virgins now.

I wonder how many of those got friedly fired for looking like a zero

This question is always very strange for me. It's quite obvious when you think about it. The most dangerous job in any war is that of the basic infantryman. It is he who will be ordered to assault fortified machine gun nests. It is he who will be menaced by snipers and enemy aircraft. It is he will be forced to navigate minefields and barbed wire. It is he who will be subjected to near constant bombardment from enemy artillery. There is no job in warfare that is worse than that of the simple grunt.

I always had a boner for the pioneers of French Foreign Legion desu
>Since the pionniers were the first to mount combat assaults, their life expectancy was very minimal. Accordingly from that principle, they reserved the right, when deploying to combat, to not shave and would come back bearded when they survived. The wearing of the beard became mandatory in the French Foreign Legion in 1844.
>In battle they joined with the grenadiers who led infantry assaults on fortified positions. The primary purpose of the pioneers was to use their axes to demolish the obstacles and barriers created by the enemy.
A MOTHERFUCKING AXE
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Legion_Pioneers_(Pionniers)

>Most Dangerous Roles in War
Kamikaze?

I'd do that desu

WW2 Chinese big sword unit desu
>get a Mauser C96, some grenades, and a shitty dadao made of railroad track
>pay is absolute trash, what with rampant inflation
>purpose is to use infiltration tactics to break through enemy lines a la ww1 stormtroopers
>in reality you'll just be used to retard rush Jap trenches because your CO is a delusional incompetent who'd rather pocket your meager pay than see you live
>if the Japs catch you, you'll die
>if you get wounded, you'll die
>if you desert, you'll die