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I looked it up while watching the documentary - there are no living veterans for World War 1. The last American WW1 vet was actually prevented from lying in state in the Capital Rotunda thanks to "budget sequestration" nonsense. All the last vets mostly died in the '00s, and even then most of them were past 105.
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Aug 15, 2017 21:53
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This may have been asked before, but how'd people think about their own deaths back in the 17th–18th centuries? I've been reading about duels and I'm having trouble visualizing a context where a random stranger going "Hey we need a sixth for a sword fight, want in?" is a reasonable question.
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Aug 15, 2017 22:03
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Siivola posted:This may have been asked before, but how'd people think about their own deaths back in the 17th–18th centuries? I've been reading about duels and I'm having trouble visualizing a context where a random stranger going "Hey we need a sixth for a sword fight, want in?" is a reasonable question. I can speak for others ITT, but I was not alive back then.
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Aug 15, 2017 22:05
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Nebakenezzer posted:I looked it up while watching the documentary - there are no living veterans for World War 1. The last American WW1 vet was actually prevented from lying in state in the Capital Rotunda thanks to "budget sequestration" nonsense. All the last vets mostly died in the '00s, and even then most of them were past 105. The last surviving WWI combat soldier was Harry Patch, who died in 2009 at the age of 111 years, 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day. John Babcock (died in 2010 at the age of 109) was the last surving person to be included in a WWI army, but never saw combat.
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Aug 15, 2017 22:12
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Siivola posted:This may have been asked before, but how'd people think about their own deaths back in the 17th–18th centuries? I've been reading about duels and I'm having trouble visualizing a context where a random stranger going "Hey we need a sixth for a sword fight, want in?" is a reasonable question. https://dralun.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/good-and-bad-deaths-in-the-seventeenth-century/ And as far as the swordfighting is concerned, if you're a young man then as far as your peers are concerned you're supposed to be brave and valorous enough that the desire to avenge yourself or your friend, or even just take part in combat, outweighs the desire not to die. People who were not your peers would lament this and possibly write a pamphlet or two about it, but who gives a poo poo about them edit: i have seen a dude in my sources joke on his deathbed with the man who killed him: the latter had come to him to be reconciled with him. "How are you doing?" he said. "Thinking very hard about getting better," the dying man said.
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Aug 15, 2017 22:19
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I have some GBH things to ask. So, hindsight being 20/20,are many of modern suggestions how WWI or WWII could have been won borne out of the experience of those wars, and the ones that followed? Would it have been possible for people back then to come up with those ideas, or were would those ideas be radically out of their frame of reference? On a similar, less vague topic: were there any secret Guderians at the outset of WWI? By "secret Guderians" I mean guys who observed wars that happened before WWI and said "you know, this whole attacking machinegun positions while shrapnel from artillery is raining around is not gonna work. Also, you might not want to rely on poorly trained conscripts that much." It is said that armies always fight the last war, but there could have been people like Guderian who kept tabs on happenings in the military world, observing exercises and whatnot, and noting interesting new developments. Interested about guys like that from other wars, too.  drat that's a good picture. Speaking of walking into machineguns: since people rile against the idea that this was a tactic in WWI, what were infantry tactics at the outset of WWI? How were they supposed to overcome a prepared position? How would it look like at company and battalion level? AND ANOTHER THING. So while I understand that I was possible for WWI to maybe end in entirely mobile fashion, was there technical capability to win trench warfare in 1914 or 1915, or was the technology to do it (tanks and whatever) just not there yet? I'm also interested in Allied warcrimes in WWII: we know that Axis did bad stuff, and that Soviets raped their way to Berlin, but have there been publication on the possible level of Allied warcrimes and coverups, if any?
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Aug 16, 2017 08:54
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JcDent posted:I'm also interested in Allied warcrimes in WWII: we know that Axis did bad stuff, and that Soviets raped their way to Berlin, but have there been publication on the possible level of Allied warcrimes and coverups, if any? The Biscari and Canicatti massacres come to mind, as well as the shooting of the Dachau guards. There's also the refusal/reluctance to take prisoners (especially Japanese), and the sadly all to normal looting, murder and rape of civilians that all armies engage in to some extent. A quick search doesn't turn up any organised war crimes, although there was some cover-up action going on with the above-mentioned. In the case of not taking Japanese prisoners, I believe this actually became such a problem for US officers that they started offering rewards like leave passes or ice cream for soldiers who took prisoners. Edit: Wikipedia, quoting thread favourite Niall Ferguson: quote:American servicemen in the Pacific War sometimes deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered, according to Richard Aldrich, a professor of history at Nottingham University. Aldrich published a study of diaries kept by United States and Australian soldiers, wherein it was stated that they sometimes massacred prisoners of war. According to John Dower, in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds." According to Professor Aldrich, it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners. His analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson, who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U.S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese." GotLag fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 09:31
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So did Japanese doing all sorts of wounded-with-grenades shenanigans resulted in take-no-prisoners which just reinforced the notion that they shouldn't give up, or did the take-no-prisoners thing start before that? What happened in Africa, Italy and Western front?
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Aug 16, 2017 11:27
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I think it was all of those factors in combination, reinforcing each other. My copy of How to Make War is currently in a box somewhere but IIRC it says that on the whole only about half of attempts by soldiers to surrender on the battlefield are successful.
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Aug 16, 2017 11:41
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JcDent posted:I have some GBH things to ask. Technically, the people back then (for WW2) had the ideas for what we use these days in terms of Modern Warfare but its more of a matter of the technology not being there. Hindsight being 20/20, its clear that a bomber force should have Strategic Bombers as a means to destroy the manufacturing capabilities of the enemy. Or that its incredibly wasteful to drive over large distances on the assumption that the enemy would "obviously" not attack from (t)here. Its also obvious in hindsight that, if you were to go to war, you should mobilize your people and maximize production as soon as possible. But ideas like jet aircraft, radar/sigint, guided munitions, combined operations, etc all existed at one point or another during the war, just not always in official use or production. As for the latter question, not really. Trench warfare wasn't insurmountable, but lacking any means of breaking through it in a timely fashion meant that you couldn't knock someone out of the war unless they ran out of men or they gave up. The tech just wasn't there yet.
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Aug 16, 2017 13:06
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JcDent posted:So did Japanese doing all sorts of wounded-with-grenades shenanigans resulted in take-no-prisoners which just reinforced the notion that they shouldn't give up, or did the take-no-prisoners thing start before that? What happened in Africa, Italy and Western front? Pretty much, the wounded-warrior-with-grenade leaves a nasty impression and you'd rather not see it happen again. Not sure about the Germans wrt being captured by the Western Allies, I never heard of the same type of event happening but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Although, it should be stated that there are some instances like this one  But for the most part it was nowhere near Eastern Front / Pacific levels. Fake Edit: I believe Black French soldiers had it particularly rough during the Battle of France, but I can't quite recall where I'd heard that from. Real edit: The Germans didn't like the Italians after they changed sides... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Acqui_Division quote:Deaths 5,155 Italian POWs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeatine_massacre Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 13:16
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By 1943 it's common knowledge that Japanese soldiers don't surrender, or will try to kill you with a fake surrender. Meanwhile being taken prisoner by the Japanese has a good chance of you ending up as live bayonet practice. Racism was a thing, but it was Japanese conduct that kicked down the bar for acceptable conduct in the Pacific. The Western front in Europe is illustrative of the mechanisms involved (and shows why you can't just point to racism). The Wehrmacht typically got treated well in surrender, but the Brits in Normandy and then the US in the Ardennes rapidly decided to kill SS prisoners out of hand. The Geneva Conventions aren't supposed to depend on reciprocity, but the historical example is that people who commit atrocities rapidly discover that they can't expect to receive any mercy in turn.
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Aug 16, 2017 13:28
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Define "people who commit atrocities" Because, uh...
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Aug 16, 2017 13:32
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my dad posted:Define "people who commit atrocities" You're absolutely right about the wehrmacht doing hosed up poo poo, but in 1944 the SS had a really nasty reputation that was grounded at least in part on allied soldiers believing they were true believer fanatics who would die to a man and did horrible poo poo to enemy combatants they captured. Experiences like the drawn out, ugly fight against SS Hitlerjugend and Malmedy reinforced that. Remember, it's not historical reality that matters in this case, but the perceptions at the time.
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Aug 16, 2017 13:40
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JcDent posted:On a similar, less vague topic: were there any secret Guderians at the outset of WWI? By "secret Guderians" I mean guys who observed wars that happened before WWI and said "you know, this whole attacking machinegun positions while shrapnel from artillery is raining around is not gonna work. Yes, there were military observers and foreign visitors to most major battles before WWI. For example, several observers were present in Port Arthur in 1904. They just drew the wrong conclusion that a massive attack on well defended position will work out fine, if you just have the determination and stamina to push through despite casualties. Similarly the Balkan wars of 1912-1913 were observed by Western military observers. They witnessed the use of barbed wire, trench warfare, machineguns and artillery concentrations, the whole WW1 style fighting right before their eyes. But then they drew the wrong conclusions and decided that a war like that could not be fought in the Western front.
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Aug 16, 2017 14:47
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Pyle posted:Yes, there were military observers and foreign visitors to most major battles before WWI. For example, several observers were present in Port Arthur in 1904. They just drew the wrong conclusion that a massive attack on well defended position will work out fine, if you just have the determination and stamina to push through despite casualties. A century ago, a Italian soldier puts his hand against his face and just sobs.
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Aug 16, 2017 14:49
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Pyle posted:Yes, there were military observers and foreign visitors to most major battles before WWI. For example, several observers were present in Port Arthur in 1904. They just drew the wrong conclusion that a massive attack on well defended position will work out fine, if you just have the determination and stamina to push through despite casualties. To be fair to the observers, attacks on well defended positions were perfectly possible on the Western Front, the issue was that due to the limited room to manuever, huge numbers of troops in a relatively small space and incredibly difficult communications it was basically impossible to conduct a meaningful breakthrough. Give a bit more room to maneuver and you didn't end up with trench warfare, like in the Near East or the Eastern Front.
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Aug 16, 2017 15:21
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JcDent posted:
This guy pretty much called the static front meatgrinder industrial war of attrition thing.
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Aug 16, 2017 16:39
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Iirc there was still a hierarchy of armies Germans wanted to be captured by with French extremely in last place. In the west.
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Aug 16, 2017 16:55
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Disinterested posted:Iirc there was still a hierarchy of armies Germans wanted to be captured by with French extremely in last place. In the west. The various Polish forces in exile were... not preferred, for obvious reasons.
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Aug 16, 2017 17:03
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my dad posted:Define "people who commit atrocities" Sorry, I'll also caveat that everyone on the Eastern Front was awful. But on the Western Front there's it's really clear that soldiers drew a moral distinction between the SS and the Heer based on their battlefield conduct. In fact I've read several accounts where the author reflects on the violence of war, regrets that they were put in a situation where they had to kill fellow humans to survive, then as an afterthought adds 'oh, except for the SS, gently caress those guys'.
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Aug 16, 2017 17:07
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Were SS units legit effective combat units? Seems like emphasizing politics over military ability would lead to some poor performance.
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Aug 16, 2017 18:34
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zoux posted:Were SS units legit effective combat units? Seems like emphasizing politics over military ability would lead to some poor performance. It's very variable. There's things like 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler that were pretty elite and got the pick of the equipment. I SS Panzer Corps had I think a lot of the heavy tanks in the Normandy campaign, which is probably where the SS got its general reputation in the West. Fangz fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 18:42
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zoux posted:Were SS units legit effective combat units? Seems like emphasizing politics over military ability would lead to some poor performance. As I recall they performed worse more or less across the board because it turns out fanatical aggression isn't actually the way to run a division.
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Aug 16, 2017 18:48
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Were SS divisions drawn from the regular army or was it a parallel structure from recruit all the way up?
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Aug 16, 2017 19:30
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HEY GAIL posted:for almost all religions in western europe (i can't speak for Muslims), making what they called "a good death" was important. Ideally you'd know it was going to happen far enough in advance that you could call your friends and relatives together and say a few edifying things, maybe distribute your earthly goods, make up with your enemies if you have any, and make a little show out of it. Like everything in this world, death was public. HEY GAIL posted:And as far as the swordfighting is concerned, if you're a young man then as far as your peers are concerned you're supposed to be brave and valorous enough that the desire to avenge yourself or your friend, or even just take part in combat, outweighs the desire not to die. People who were not your peers would lament this and possibly write a pamphlet or two about it, but who gives a poo poo about them  That sounds a bit like how some losing duelists would end up asking their families not to talk to the authorities, since they didn't want to get the poor sod charged with manslaughter. On that note, Stephen Banks's A Polite Exchange of Bullets is a real good look at dueling in 1750–1860 Britain. Got footnotes and bar graphs and everything, as well as a large collection of exemplary duels from the period. Tangentially relevant to the thread, even, since it turns out soldiers were responsible for a large number of recorded duels.
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Aug 16, 2017 19:36
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zoux posted:Were SS divisions drawn from the regular army or was it a parallel structure from recruit all the way up? They were a parallel structure to the point of having separate supply channels for equipment than the regular army.
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Aug 16, 2017 19:39
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Fangz posted:It's very variable. There's things like 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler that were pretty elite and got the pick of the equipment. I SS Panzer Corps had I think a lot of the heavy tanks in the Normandy campaign, which is probably where the SS got its general reputation in the West. This is my impression. The first SS Division fought in several early campaigns, where they had a reputation for being tough but fair opponents. The reputation of a particular division and how effective they were varies depending on time and place.
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Aug 16, 2017 19:55
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zoux posted:Were SS units legit effective combat units? Seems like emphasizing politics over military ability would lead to some poor performance. This varies from unit to unit. Everyone knows the more famous ones like Grossdeutschland but you can be sure as poo poo that units like the Indian Legion did jack and poo poo.
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Aug 16, 2017 20:15
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Was that the first time you had a country split its military into a "regular" and ideologically focused forces? Are modern forces like the Pasdaran analogous to this Heer/SS parallel structure or is that overly facile?
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Aug 16, 2017 20:29
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Jobbo_Fett posted:This varies from unit to unit. Everyone knows the more famous ones like Grossdeutschland but you can be sure as poo poo that units like the Indian Legion did jack and poo poo. Grossdeutschland was a Heer unit, part of the reason it got so inflated was because the wehrmacht wanted something to compete with the SS on. zoux posted:Was that the first time you had a country split its military into a "regular" and ideologically focused forces? Are modern forces like the Pasdaran analogous to this Heer/SS parallel structure or is that overly facile? The concept exists, but the pathologies vary. Saddam's Republican Guard had a very different purpose and function than the SS. Slim Jim Pickens fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 20:36
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Grossdeutschland was a Heer unit, part of the reason it got so inflated was because the wehrmacht wanted something to compete with the SS on.  right, duh. Das Reich famous / Kaminski Brigade poo poo.Also, as for the divide between regular forces and ideologically motived ones, would a Crusading Army vis-a-vis regular forces of a participating count?
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Aug 16, 2017 20:40
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Jobbo_Fett posted:
What was the percentage split there?
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Aug 16, 2017 20:41
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zoux posted:What was the percentage split there? Pulling it out of my rear end but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 25/75 good/bad ratio.
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Aug 16, 2017 20:42
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Haha which is good and which is bad? Dudes killing Muslims because of Intense Religious Fervor is bad but so are Dudes killing Muslims because hey if there's killing going on there's plunder to be made.
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Aug 16, 2017 20:44
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zoux posted:Haha which is good and which is bad? Dudes killing Muslims because of Intense Religious Fervor is bad but so are Dudes killing Muslims because hey if there's killing going on there's plunder to be made. The guys killing Jews because the Holy Land is a pain to get to but the Rheinland is like right here
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Aug 16, 2017 20:50
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JcDent posted:On a similar, less vague topic: were there any secret Guderians at the outset of WWI? By "secret Guderians" I mean guys who observed wars that happened before WWI and said "you know, this whole attacking machinegun positions while shrapnel from artillery is raining around is not gonna work. Also, you might not want to rely on poorly trained conscripts that much." It is said that armies always fight the last war, but there could have been people like Guderian who kept tabs on happenings in the military world, observing exercises and whatnot, and noting interesting new developments. Interested about guys like that from other wars, too. I can't speak to France or Germany because of lack of information, but I do know there was a chap called Sir Ian Hamilton who was a military attache during the Russo-Japanese War and who came back with the heresy that the destructive power of modern artillery and machine guns meant that cavalry was now obsolete because it'd just get shot tae gently caress, and therefore doctrine for a potential European war should be comprehensively revised to take account of how nobody possessed a viable military arm to exploit local breakthroughts and weaknesses any more. He's also very enthusiastic about the potential for night attacks and the military applications of Flying-machines to help make up for the lack of a cavalry. He is of course correct in every important particular, and therefore is treated as a dangerous crank and kept far away from anything important. Let's now assume that in about 1908 he becomes Secretary of State for War with a cast-iron guarantee that he will be backed unconditionally by whoever the Prime Minister happens to be at the time. Here are just some of the ways in which it probably won't end up mattering a drat bit. 1). As the highest social-ranking arm, the cavalry is very much over-represented among British generals. Appointing a man who is telling them that they're all obsolete and they need to learn a completely new way to do war is going to go down like a cup of cold sick. If you sack them all, you achieve a similar effect to Stalin's Generals' Purge and we likely end up with men of the calibre of Freddie Stopford taking senior commands in France in 1914 instead of Gallipoli in 1915, whose failure will by extension discredit Hamilton's way of thinking. If you keep them, they're going to do their hardest to frustrate any serious effort at reform, and it is all but certain that Hamilton would absolutely have been unable to properly deal with any kind of resistance from below because of his own utter incompetence as commander-in-chief at Gallipoli, where according to his own drat diary he was a useless passive flaccid vaccillating twerp who was completely incapable of such ungentlemanly acts as giving orders to subordinates. 2). Even assuming that the factors above are irrelevant; you need a real shooting war to properly evaluate your doctrine and ensure that lessons learned are learned and absorbed. General Haig got absolutely caught with his kecks down, almost to a Millennium Challenge degree, in the 1912 Army Manoeuvres because his opponent Grierson used aircraft reconaissance to devastating effect. Fast forward to 1914. The two BEF corps commanders are Haig and Grierson*. If ever there was a chance to learn the power of aircraft recon, there it is. When scouting reports came back just before the Battle of Mons that the two BEF corps had an entire German army coming right for them and possibly marching round their left too, the pilots were told they were being far too imaginative in their reporting and to stop this drat fool nonsense. *Grierson in fact died on the journey to the front, but it was still fundamentally his corps and his culture among the intelligence officers. 3). Even assuming that the factors above are irrelevant: Hamilton's imagination is only truly sufficient to advance the situation in SBK 1914 to where it was in by, oh, OTL December 1915. And this is a best-case scenario which assumes that loads of chained things went precisely right, such as "an increased focus on the use of aircraft means that an aerial camera has been invented and perfected by mid-1914" and "Hamilton has a chance meeting with Captain Swinton and over a series of boozy dinners at the In-and-Out they figure out a few things about what tanks are supposed to be way ahead of schedule, and then persuade the skeptics at the Treasury to take them seriously". (By which point the Kaiser is so straight and black, it probably turns out that Frederick III has been on the throne all this time and Wilhelm ended up dying in a tragic sailing accident.) This one goes to the other point you're making; it is absolutely beyond any one man in 1913 to have invented All Arms Battle. Foch's still making incendiary statements about the utmost importance of elan and Rawlinson is just one face among an entire parade of interchangeable modern majors-general. There are so many different moving parts. Not just the existence of poison gas as a thinkable weapon, but the best ways to deploy it and the best gases to use. Not just the knowledge that counter-battery fire is important, but thinking up and refining the methods of sound-ranging on enemy guns, of getting your own artillery fire corrections from aerial spotters, and the best methods of transmission. Not just the knowledge that modern artillery is so much more deadly than in 1870, but determining whether it's more favourable to use a hurricane or an overwhelming bombardment, coming up with the concept of rolling fire and refining it into a useable tactic. Not just the knowledge that machine-guns are vital, but figuring out how best to deploy them, developing new light man-portable weapons for use on the move. And so it goes on and on and on and on and on. That's without mentioning tanks, or hand grenades, or foot inspections, or field-telephones, or triage, or mortars. It took suggestions and refinements from an army's worth of men (insert joke about military intelligence and oxymorons here) to get to the Battle of Amiens. If you want one man to work on that scale, you don't want Guderian; you want Ender Wiggin. quote:Speaking of walking into machineguns: since people rile against the idea that this was a tactic in WWI, what were infantry tactics at the outset of WWI? How were they supposed to overcome a prepared position? How would it look like at company and battalion level? Somewhere I can't find it right now I have a British Army manual from 1914 talking about just this question. To brutally summarise and simplify. Coordinate with artillery to obtain details of supporting bombardment. Advance as close as possible to the enemy without taking (too much) fire before beginning of bombardment. Take cover and men self-entrench if there's time. Fix bayonets. Wait for bombardment to begin. Don't die. When it ends, advance at the run. If the enemy begins resisting during the advance across open ground, advance in a series of 50-yard "alternate rushes": one platoon or section advances while their neighbours provide covering rifle fire, then it kneels and opens fire while their neighbours advance. Close to contact and get stuck in with the bayonet if required. Take the position and refer to orders to find out what to do next. Walking into machine-gun fire was never supposed to happen. That's why you have artillery support; ideally to destroy the machine-gun nests, but at the very least to suppress their operators until your infantry can get in among them and deal with them before they can open fire. Occasions when men walked into machine-gun fire can just about all be traced back to poor planning and insufficient artillery; much as they're synonymous with the first day on the Somme, they're actually far more common in the following months, as individual battalions and companies were idiotically thrown away in penny-packet attacks with little or no artillery support. (In some ways, those actions have more in common with attacks at Gallipoli or in Africa than with the first day of their own offensive.) Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 20:53
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zoux posted:Was that the first time you had a country split its military into a "regular" and ideologically focused forces? Are modern forces like the Pasdaran analogous to this Heer/SS parallel structure or is that overly facile? Having a special super loyal military to protect you from your other regular military goes all the way back. Varangian guard, janisseries etc.
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Aug 16, 2017 20:55
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Jobbo_Fett posted:
Not really because the only difference between a guy on Crusade and in a feudal turf fight is who he considers his enemy to be. You'd still consider yourself in the service of your liege either way, and if your liege stopped crusading it'd be almost a certainty that you would stop participating too. zoux posted:Was that the first time you had a country split its military into a "regular" and ideologically focused forces? Are modern forces like the Pasdaran analogous to this Heer/SS parallel structure or is that overly facile? Maybe you could make a distinction between the Maison du Roi in France versus the regular Armee but it's really too early for standing armies. The Garde Nationale certainly developed a separate political identity but I do not think that was the original goal.
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Aug 16, 2017 21:06
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feedmegin posted:Having a special super loyal military to protect you from your other regular military goes all the way back. Varangian guard, janisseries etc. I think that this is a bit inaccurate because the rest of the military isn't loyal to The State / the People it's loyal to the Doux of Thrace or whatever the gently caress. It's all a concept of personal loyalties. That's why I hesitate to split the Maison du Roi out from the rest of the Armee because in the end, the entire army at that point was loyal to the King directly.
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Aug 16, 2017 21:08
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