>just run at the machine guns lmao
why were wwi generals so incompetent?
Just run at the machine guns lmao
Lucas Jenkins
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Jose Ward
>have a problem that nobody has ever dealt with before
>try doing the thing that worked last time
This being said, Luigi Cadorna is a prime example of when assassination is a good idea.
Jeremiah Thompson
they didn't know how to use teh weapons they had and were relying on diplomatic policies to continue their war effort (subsidies, alliances). On top of that tehy were nationalists to a fault so they were going to get destroyed no matter what.,
Luis Evans
Holy shit learn to type.
Levi Reyes
War had changed. Nothing they trained for was working, and the Germans were awfully close to Paris so experimentation was risky. One false move could cost the war. Under this backdrop Haig and others developed a system of combat that killed as many Germans as they lost. Given the numerical superiority of the Entente powers, at this rate they would win and the Germans would lose. So Haig stuck to a sure, if costly strategy, rather than risk losing everything by fucking around with something new. It's hard to blame him.
Joshua Miller
Haig is an underrated general. Unlike based Luigi he never tried the same thing twice, and by the end of the war had developed the modern combined arms tactics to break the stalemate. The British had lower casualty rates than any other army on the Western front. Politicians made Haig a scapegoat for the slaughter so they wouldn't be blamed themselves for being retarded imperialist nationalists
Andrew Scott
The fault only lies in the Germans buying so many machine guns before hand
If they hadn’t then their tactics wouldn’t have got such successes
Also artillery not defeating the barbed wire is the main reason why the machine guns won
Grayson Morgan
Butcher Haig was a retarded bong, the classic bong military leader, severed from all reality.
Owen Clark
The casual answer would be, that they still thought in Napoleonic terms, infantry formations, charging with bayonets at an enemy countering with volleys of fire, while massed batteries supported them, with direct fire and cavalry breaks through the lines.
But, you have to consider, even though they had no experience with machine guns in the field and as a weapon of the infantry against other European armies, they had some ideas on how to overcome it.
The general idea was that a mass of infantry, would generally be stronger than a machine gun, the machine gun had to be repaired when it had mechanical malfunctions, the gunner had to focus on multiple targets, he would reload, his gun would overheat, also machine guns were rare due to their production costs and unknown value in combat. The infantry could just fire a volley at the machine gun standing in the open, or charge at it with it's bayonet, as it was not very accurate and the generals thought a tightly packed infantry blob, running at full speed would be able to keep charging under fire. That is why they insisted on morale beeing important for modern warfare, the infantry unit should not break under rapid fire and route the enemy with it's rifle fire, close-combat capability and offensive-moral, that is why they regarded discipline, central leadership and esprit du corps higher, they thought the machine gun was not very potent.
Remember, before WW1, machine gun posts, massed machine guns, bunkers, large MG-troop-sections and such were not common or invented yet.
Also, we have cases, such as the battle of Adrianope in 1912 for example, where Bulgarian and Serbian units, defeated entrenched Ottoman troops with machine guns, after charging into their positions.
What we call "modern warfare"(Position warfare,assault tactics,battles of annihilation,mechanized warfare,indirect artillery, fire&movement,NCO-focus) was inexistent before the problems that occured during WW1 created it.
Noah Baker
They were often old and just got into pension, small-scale wars that would have brought military-technology forward, had not happened. This escalation was not ineviteable, but as it happened, it's effects on the armies were necessary.
Elijah Bell
>>just run at the machine guns lmao
When they did that, it was because there was little other option. Artillery killed far more than machine guns ever did anyway.
Brayden Reyes
Kevin James
>The British had had lower casualty rates than any other army on the western front
Now, I would argue against that, in the sense that for their circmstances and proportions they suffered more.
At Loose, on the first day, through a multiple hour long period, the British suffered nearly one casualty per minute.
At the Somme, they made Great success, but some villages lost all of the men who had enlisted in the Army.
The British were keen on offensives, unlike the French who wanted to spare their blood and efforts and rather defeat the Germans through defensive measures and slowly driving them off from their land, after having received massive casualties.
The British made up the main body of operational forces in Flandres and Northern France along the channel coast and Belgian border, they payed the blood toll there, their forces just were overall smaller.
Isaiah Williams
They came up with a completely new way of warfare - combined arms using aicraft, tanks, infantry and artillery and new tactics - creeping barrage, bite and hold, infiltration, accurate counter-battery fire etc. They did really incredibly well all in all. They had to attack the Germans in their fortified positions at a time when the military technology greatly favoured the defender.
Liam Lee
>The British were keen on offensives, unlike the French who wanted to spare their blood and efforts
The French were mad keen on offensives - but their general were no good at them. They launched one poorly planned blood-drenched offensive after another until the French troops mutinied.
Wyatt Martinez
Europe hadn't had a hallmark massive war in quite some time, technology was at a major turning point and few people understood it practically. Also, corruption in beaurocracy across Europe (buying an Officer's position was standard in many countries).
Isaac Johnson
The French were very big on the offensive and suffered the most in this war, did the heavy lifting too, which is kinda normal as it was their country the krauts had invaded
Hunter Flores
Haig didn't develop the principles. Generals under him like Monasch and Currie did. At the same time Germans like Bruchmuller and Hutier were employing combined artillery and stormtrooper tactics. Haig wasn't anything special
Jace King
There may not have been widespread examples of warfare with modern weapons but there were some. European militaries failed massively to learn from smaller conflicts like the Russo-Japanese or Balkan Wars.
Jack Ramirez
Reminder the Argies named a football club after Haig
en.wikipedia.org
Brandon Wilson
this is hilarious
Isaiah Campbell
It should be noted that even when the battles were fought with more modern tactics, the 1918 Spring Offensive for instance, the casualties were enormous.
During the 100 Days the Allies using combined arms and the latest tactics still suffered over a million casualties.
Luis Garcia
>The French were mad keen on offensives - but their general were no good at them. They launched one poorly planned blood-drenched offensive after another until the French troops mutinied.
The French were among the first to develop small group attack tactics. They had the best field artillery and tanks of the war and by 1917 started issuing their infantry carbines. They were at least as capable and the Germans or Commonwealth forces on attack, especially after 1915.
The army's big issue with the Nivelle Offensive was how utterly pointless it was. The United States had just entered the war and there was no reason to do anything but sit-tight and hold the line until they started showing up in force.
Also the offensive canceled leave for hundreds of thousands of French soldiers who hadn't seen their families since before Verdun...that was a morale crusher.
Logan Scott
That's because Americans can't fight.
Jace Howard
>The British were keen on offensives, unlike the French who wanted to spare their blood and efforts and rather defeat the Germans through defensive measures
Do you even attaque a outrance? Cran, elan, at la bayonette?
Ethan Reed
It wasn't just machine guns:
-- Repeating rifles had pretty recently become standard issue with most armies.
-- Cheap barbed wire made movement far more difficult.
-- The size of armies relative to the land area finally reached a point, on the Western Front, that a continuous line from the Channel to Switzerland could be fortified with no way around it.
That last bit, the total lack of maneuver options, was probably the biggest new thing that they had to deal with.
Easton Price
By the end of WW1 combined arms assaults were down to a precise art and at a level of expertise that has never been achieved since. Contemporary militaries couldn't achieve anything close. General Monash (an Australian) could have an offensive pre-planned in meticulous detail and then successfully concluded to almost the exact timeline he had envisioned. In fact he is called the father of blitzkrieg as the Germans learned from this.
Wrong, while he had an almost impossible situation to deal with, he had the balls to recognise realities. While everybody else was just moaning "surely there is another way" he knew it was a war of attrition and he won it the only way it could have been won. Sure there was overwhelming waste and stupidity involved in parts but his overarching plan was sound.
Hudson Jenkins
fucking incredible none of his men tried to take him out
Zachary Bennett
>at a level of expertise that has never been achieved since
I'm not sure you can really compare planning a WW1 offensive with a post-WW1 offensive
Carson Wright
Why not? I served in the army and we had extremely little (almost no) proper training in combined arms assaults. The institutional knowledge and experience is gone and replaced with counter-insurgency. Technology has changed but the basic premise hasn't.
Ethan Rogers
I don't want to speak beyond my knowledge, but some points I would consider even compared to WW2 offensives
WW2 changes
1. Air arm goes from minor to a decisive presence
2. Mechanisation is vastly increased in both logistical and frontline units
3. Communications become more complex
4. Points 1,2 and 3 make things incredibly more mobile and dynamic. This is no longer just assaulting a trench network and advancing a mile a day at best.
I imagine comparing a modern offensive to a WW2 offensive would be a whole different level of complexity
Logan Long
You're missing the point. I'm saying that in 1918 the entire military was fine-tuned to large scale combined arms assaults designed to overcome extensive defensive positions manned by huge amounts of enemy. Today the military is not, and to achieve the same expertise would similarly take years of bitter experience.
Nathaniel Torres
It's expertise in an outdated concept, like (to use a bit of hyperbole) the lost experience of melee infantry formations & attacks.
It was great back then but I don't think anything would be gained by re-learning those kind of assaults.
Juan Bennett
Dude massive combined arms assaults are not outdated just because they haven't been needed recently. You're getting caught up in the semantics of the tactics without recognising that combined arms assaults are very complex and easily collapse into chaos. I'm saying that in 1918 armies were very good at it (in answer to OP's point), much better than we would be today. It doesn't matter that today's generals would be fucking up a different kind of assault.
Christopher Peterson
>Dude massive combined arms assaults are not outdated just because they haven't been needed recently.
Technologically, no, but geopolitically there are very few, if any, states who need that kind of expertise right now.
Benjamin Clark
Which is exactly what everybody said after WW1. There is literally no structural reason for conventional warfare to be a thing of the past. Nukes make it more complicated but don't preclude it outright. There is already concern in the West that Russia is getting better at it due to their experience in Ukraine.
Jaxson Walker
war was stagnated and generals wanted progress. It's not like they didn't realize people would die. They just didn't have much options because vehicles weren't mass produced for warfare.
Lucas Wood
>The British were keen on offensives, unlike the French who wanted to spare their blood and efforts
/out/