The First World War

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by palo5

I know what you mean, but clearly the 40 cm Krupp guns could have been used for this purpose, and the rebuilding would have brought nothing

Possibly. WW I featured a lot of very big artillery, which proved quite difficult to employ effectively, most notably the "Paris Gun".

The 420 mm "Big Berthas" were used at Verdun, but against the French forts, with armor piercing ammunition, and without great success. It was a howitzer, and the range wasn't huge -- 8 miles is what I find by googling.

[squigg58]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

The main British design of spotters were the BE2 and it's replacement the RE8(Harry Tate),both were slow, stable and difficult to defend and very many British aircrew were killed flying them.

On the afternoon of 17th December 1917, an RE.8 (serial number A.3816), flown by Lieutenant J. L. Sandy, with Sergeant H. F. Hughes as observer, was ranging an 8-inch howitzer battery when it was attacked by six Albatros DVa scouts between Deulemont and Armentieres. The RE.8 engaged the enemy and succeeded in forcing one of the DVa's to land. The German pilot was taken prisoner by infantry of the 21st Battalion, 2nd Australian Division. His Albatros aircraft was captured and is now displayed in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Meanwhile, another RE.8 had arrived to assist Sandy & Hughes, and the the dogfight continued until a third RE.8 turned up; at which point the German aircraft broke away. The RE.8 of Sandy & Hughes was flying normally and did not seem to be damaged, so the two supporting RE.8's headed off to continue with their allotted tasks.

However, Sandy & Hughes never returned to base. Both had been killed instantly during the dogfight when an armour-piercing bullet had passed through Hughes' chest and into Sandy's head. The RE.8 had then entered a gentle banked turn to port and drifted about 50 miles downwind until the fuel ran out. The crash-landing caused little damage to the aircraft and did not result in additional injuries to the (already dead!) crew.

The RE.8 had originally been designed to be less stable than the BE.2, but pilots disliked the change so the aircraft was subsequently modified to improve stability ... to such an extent that it could fly, and land (albeit heavily), all on it's own!

[damp-patch]

Originally Posted by palo5

It's said the Germans lost a golden opportunity at Verdun, and could have won.

It was never Falkenhayn's intention to 'win'. The whole cynical reason behind the German attack at Verdun was to hit the French in a place their pride would not allow them to cede. He wanted to bleed the French army white, not take Verdun.

[Ennath]

Originally Posted by damp-patch

It was never Falkenhayn's intention to 'win'. The whole cynical reason behind the German attack at Verdun was to hit the French in a place their pride would not allow them to cede. He wanted to bleed the French army white, not take Verdun.

Unfortunately for Germany, their army bled as profusely as the French.

[haroldeye]

And the German Army had it's back broken on the Somme according to Ludendorf.

Ah well krieg is krieg und schnapps is schnapps as the Germans would say.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by damp-patch

It was never Falkenhayn's intention to 'win'. The whole cynical reason behind the German attack at Verdun was to hit the French in a place their pride would not allow them to cede. He wanted to bleed the French army white, not take Verdun.

This was von Falkenhayn's own version of events but has not been corroberated. It is quite likely that he made this up afterwards to conceal his failure. It should be noted that his attrition strategy, if indeed it was an attrition strategy, led to German casualties of 434,000 (332,000 killed) against French casualties of 542,000 (362,000 killed). German losses were astonishingly high and probably harder to bear than French losses, given that France had a large British expeditionary force to support her on her one and only main battlefront, while Germany was heavily involved in Russia and had to assist various allies such as Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey. Bleeding France white was only a good idea if it could be achieved economically. Falkenhayn needed to alter the ratio; more holes in them, less holes in us. It is also only fair to note that Marshall Petain instituted a rotation system a little bit like the one employed by Zhukov and Koniev in the latter stages of WW2, in which divisions were fought until they were exhausted and badly depleted, but then pulled right out of it and allowed all the time necessary to rest, refit, and train up the replacements. The German units did not rotate; their men stayed where they were until they were killed, wounded, or the battle ended, a battle which ran for nearly all of 1916. On the whole, I'd say the French won on points in the attrition stakes.

Having said that, I do believe Verdun left a scar on France which is still highly visible today.

[elf4736]

If anyone is interested

The Storm of Steel (Ernst Junger)

Eye Deep In Hell (John Ellis)

Death's Men (Denis Winter)

[palo5]

Originally Posted by damp-patch

It was never Falkenhayn's intention to 'win'. The whole cynical reason behind the German attack at Verdun was to hit the French in a place their pride would not allow them to cede. He wanted to bleed the French army white, not take Verdun.

That's what he said. But the strange thing is, he could have taken it

[palo5]

Originally Posted by haroldeye

And the German Army had it's back broken on the Somme according to Ludendorf.

Ludendorff wrote much nonsense to save his reputation. He even "forgot" to mention the arrival of two million American troops in 1918, which is really what ended the war in the West

The Somme is known in history for Western losses, and its incompetent commanders

[jokerman]

Originally Posted by palo5

Ludendorff wrote much nonsense to save his reputation. He even "forgot" to mention the arrival of two million American troops in 1918, which is really what ended the war in the West

The Somme is known in history for Western losses, and its incompetent commanders

Palo. It was reputedly one million U.S. troops & not two million. As has often been quoted. Although it is poosible that it could have been up to two million given the number of reinforcements that were arriving every day. The U.S declared war in April 1917. but their army didn't see any action on the western front until the march 1918 offensives.

What is also not remembered is that the battle of the Somme which began on July the first 1916 was actually designed originally by the French to get the B.E.F more involved on the western front. And it then became an attempt by an untried British army & it's French allies to take the pressure off the French at Verdun.

As for the senior officers. Whilst it's true that some were incompetent. There were also some excellent officers. Such as General Maxse the commanding general of the then 14th eastern division. Or it might have been the 15th. I'll have to go back to the books on that one.

The Somme was also the first time that the tank was used in battle. All be it not very succesfully. But the fact is that at that time the tank was also an untried weapon that had to be used somewhere at some time.
Thus proving that the high command were not the dunderheads that many historians have claimed them to be.

As is well documented on the first day the British suffered nearly sixty thousand casualties. With nearly twenty thousand killed.

To this day some of them have no known grave.

May they rest in peace.