Comments
Follow Comments Sorted by time
guest_
· 5 years ago
· FIRST
As funny a story it is- it isn’t quite true. Like most things in WW2 it’s very complicated and involved and ultimately from our perspective stupid- but that’s largely because technology wasn’t really good enough to offer many smart solutions, but was good enough to have outpaced military tactics. The British military was inexperienced and what they were doing was something never done. They made a host of incorrect assumptions that made things worse and had faulty intelligence on the German tactical situation. Their allies were tied up and their plan relied on an artillery barrage to soften the defenses- which failed and left the troops walking into a death trap they didn’t have the experience to get out of.
guest_
· 5 years ago
As for the walking- sorta true. But contrary to the myth it wasn’t just some ploy. A WW1 battle field in Europe tended to be thick mud full of trenches and craters. Very rough terrain that made movement difficult. WW1 soldiers carried ALOT of gear and it tended to be heavy and crappy. Sometimes they had to carry doubles of things like gas masks for when, not if, the first failed or broke in use. The soldiers at Somme were being sent on a mission where they weren’t expected to see resistance or barb wire until they were through the lines- and were expected to not have resupply for a whole day of heavy fighting. Many were loaded up with 90,100 or more lbs of gear, hundreds of rounds of ammo and everything else a soldier needs in the trenches.
·
Edited 5 years ago
guest_
· 5 years ago
Contemporary reports often tell of soldiers being so burdened and terrain so rough that they couldn’t climb out of their own trenches without helpers. So carrying that much gear through thick mud- running isn’t really an option. Even in modern times regular military forces and even special operations units have failed missions or been killed in large part thanks to mud.
Show All
guest_
· 5 years ago
Thick mud sucks you in and clings to you. Anyone who’s been off roading knows that a 4,000lb truck can’t be pulled from deep mud by a winch of give or take at least twice that rating. If you’ve ever been in deep snow or sand you know it is hard to walk through let alone run- mud is worse. Add that mud can be slicker than ice, and throw in uneven terrain or a grade and that puts you at a huge disadvantage.
guest_
· 5 years ago
So these folks practically couldn’t run- but they also had no reason to. The artillery barrage (largest in history at the time) was supposed to have softened up the Germans and their defenses and left little resistance. At the time of the start f the battle- wave formation was popular in tactics. A row of troops would advance- scattered to prevent clustering that would make it easy for enemy artillery to take out large groups at once. Behind them by a ways another wave and so forth. As the waves advanced- taking out defenses and providing suppressing fire, men from the wave beyond would replace men who were wounded or out of the fight, and cover the retreat of the wounded.
guest_
· 5 years ago
This strategy has advantages but a major disadvantage is against machine guns- still relatively new inventions- but most of those along the forward line were supposed to be taken out by artillery. The Germans had dug bunkers into the chalk ground effectively protecting most of their troops and positions. Much of the artillery didn’t detonate on impact or sunk in the mud and had greatly reduced effect. Many of the shells- especially at the forward positions weren’t high explosives. They were shrapnel charges- explosives designed to throw debris. The British had theorized the shrapnel would break up the barbed wire protecting the German trenches. It dis not in any effective manner. Hence- the troops made their way across difficult terrain at a greatly reduced speed as made prudent by the terrain, impending assault, and projected resistance.
guest_
· 5 years ago
They traveled in a wave formation- not neat little rows like revolutionary era soldiers- but still it would look from a distance much like a bunch of gents out for a stroll across no man’s land to the casual observer. And from these details comes the misconception that such a tactic was intended and ordered as a shock and awe technique. Somewhat in the way that it is often said WW1 was started because of an assassination- or even because of a sandwich. There is some truth to the story but it is more complex than that.
·
Edited 5 years ago
