What coudld have happened? WW1

[Warluster]

Let me put a battle forward, but first, if for example, I put forward the battle of Verdun, what could have happened? What would have YOU done?
Well I will put forward a BATTLE.... Ah... the SOMME!
What could have happened, what would have you done? A complete failure, a straight charge at Machine-guns, how could that change, if you are going to say 'This is for the CHAPTER HOUSE!' dont, because the chapter huse is for detailed discussions with Chapters, I want to know what you would have done, bombed for longer, send them in smaller waves? Choose,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I FEEL THIS IS NOT FOR THE CHAPTER HUSE, SO DO NOT SAY TO GO THERE, BECAUSE i WONT!

[Stig]

The problem was that generals simply didn't know how to attack trenches, and also because there was no other way then crossing the no-mans-land. You had to cross it, you simply couldn't outflank trenches. Till the coming of the tank you simply had to march your entire division without support.

Now there were different methods of advancing.
The Brits advanced in a big front all the men next to eachother.
The Frogs and Yanks advanced in lines of about 8 men with good distances between the groups.

Imo that last approach would be better. Furthermore I would first shell for 30 minutes with normal ammo. Then start using gas, and (I don't know if it would be possible back then) lay a smoke screen.
Since no-mens land was big, I would (after the smoke screen) order the men to advance and start using gas again. To keep the enemy down, and their morale low.

[Kraxis]

This is for the Chapter House....

No, what I would have done was perhaps coty that tactic, however the French proved they were adept at losing lots of infantry as well, as were the Yanks.

I would however know I could do little about the initial wave, they would lose lots, as in most wars, but in WWI even more so.
But generally the first wave would capture at least one line of trenches. Then get thrown back.

The reason was the generals spread out far far too much. I would concentrate on the few miles at most. Stack up division after division behind the first, and just punch through on a limited front. Also, to make sure I would get litte interferrence from arty I would not bomb the frontlines save a short "get in the tunnels" bombardment. I would pound the rear areas where arty, supplies, communications and reseves were. That should leave me the chances to get through.

I'm not general so all the basics I would leave to my subordinates, but that is the template. If I had tanks, great! If not... I would handle that as well.

I'm sure you can see where this comes from eh? I doubt I need to give a hit.

[The Stranger]

SEND IN THE CAVALRY...l

[Kraxis]

SEND IN THE CAVALRY...l

Well that wuold be the order as soon as my guy began reaching land with no more barbed wire and trenches... Boy would cavalry rip open arty if they had the chance.

[Avicenna]

Keep the artillery going for longer. Sooner or later the entrenched German army would surrender due to lack of supplies. Bomb til the mud is settled and no man's land is passable, and if they still don't surrender, do what the British eventually thought of: send in infantry, covered by artillery fire a bit in front of them. Concentrate a large force on one specific area, while holding back plenty of reserves to try and hide the fact. Once the trench is broken into, a strike into the communications centre to eliminate the leaders. Then, do what would not be expected by the Germans and attack from behind. Of course, by this point, it's quite likely something's gone wrong and this force is destroyed.

[Kagemusha]

Well that wuold be the order as soon as my guy began reaching land with no more barbed wire and trenches... Boy would cavalry rip open arty if they had the chance.

Or maybe armored cavalry my friend? Your tactic sounds awfully like Schwerpunkt.

[Warluster]

Wait a second, did some people say something about the American Froces going in? If so, thats impossbile, The Battle of the Somme, 1916, right? Well the America did not join the war until 1917 thankyou very much.

Most people have suggested Concentrating on one area it seems, and bombing before the battle, but remember, the mud would not settle, but make it worse.

[Csargo]

I'de have to agree with Kraxis here. I'de say a massed assualt on a small front. Arty used for cover. If I have anything else to say I will say it later I can't think of anything else.

[Marius Dynamite]

I would stack my own forces in a defensive position such as a trench and I would establish several machine gun nests and snipers along my trench so my enemy could not attack. Meanwhile I would cut off my enemies trade supplies from the sea with a massive, war-long blockade.
All the while I would develope new technology which could cross no-mans-land without a scratch and let my enemy destroy his own chances of Victory by destroying neutral American ships and sending telegrams to Mexico asking them to attack America. I would of course intercept these telegrams and tell my good friends America about them.
Not forgetting of course continously bombarding my enemy with the latest in artillery technology so they could never launch a decent attack against me.

But wait, you asked what I would have done at a battle? I certainly wouldn't have attacked anyway. I would entrench and let my enemy screw their own war effort up. Remember the old saying? Something about

'I am more scared of my own mistakes than my enemies designs.'

Well thats not strictly true. The Germans were pretty scared of those big old 'water tanks'.

[Geezer57]

Hmmm, I thought the Germans had success with Sturmtruppen in the last year of WWI, using infiltration tactics, avoiding strong points and being bogged down in heavy combat.
Link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper
I'd try something similar, and only commit major forces after the special troops had opened the way.

[Geoffrey S]

Keep the artillery going for longer. Sooner or later the entrenched German army would surrender due to lack of supplies. Bomb til the mud is settled and no man's land is passable, and if they still don't surrender, do what the British eventually thought of: send in infantry, covered by artillery fire a bit in front of them. Concentrate a large force on one specific area, while holding back plenty of reserves to try and hide the fact. Once the trench is broken into, a strike into the communications centre to eliminate the leaders. Then, do what would not be expected by the Germans and attack from behind. Of course, by this point, it's quite likely something's gone wrong and this force is destroyed.

Verdun?

Problem with artillery is that it's a dead giveaway where the attack will focus. That was the main issue with trench warfare, the scale was too large and the timing too ponderous for effective maneuvering and the chain of command simply could not cope with such a huge front. Surprise attacks would be the only way to conclusively overrun an area of the trenches but were impossible due to the logistics and resulting intelligence to the enemy involved.

Best option in my view would have been to concentrate on holding the line and focusing on attacking other areas around the globe. Hold the German navy, support Russia and work in Italy and the Balkans. And perhaps most importantly, quality over quantity and a better organised lower-tier leadership were essential: this would free the people in charge to deal with strategy and allow the people actually on the front to take advantage over sudden oppurtunities more quickly. Commands filtered around the chain of command too slowly for details to be effective.

[The Stranger]

train special forces, 12 soldiers, equip them with submachineguns, trenchguns (if they had them at that time), rifles and one light heavy machinegun carried by two man...

first pick out an essential piece of the trench line and pound the hell out of it and the nomansland, after that send in a smoke screen and behind the smokescreen ill send in snipers/marksmen that will hide in the craters left by the arty. Theyll be equiped for a day or 2 and will stay there doing nothing until the attack starts. When the attacks starts the snipers will take down the mg's and the arty will attack the rear lines where the supplies and enemy arty is stationed. The infatry will attack the first lines under covering fire of the snipers... when they have taken the first line youll pour in even more infantry but before they go ill send in the special forces, theyll secure the flanks and make the piece of trench a GATE. The infantry that will attack the second line, mass nade the lines and after all grenades have exploded the special units will attack securing 2 new flanks in the second line, the rest of the infantry will attack through the middle and fight from there to the flanks. The reserve infantry will stay on the flanks and setting up new defenses. The rest will fight through. From the flanks you rapidly expand through the trenches, because the machine guns are mounted to the front and not to the flank or rear and theyll be virtually useless. Any arty that survives my arty attack will barely be of use because theyll also kill their own units.

The extremely well trained special units must lead every attack, securing and holding important spots. When the gate has been opened you can (safely) pour in infrantry into enemy trenches.

When attacking a hill, the snipers will take out everybody they can spot, after that arty will make sure that everybody that has managed to keep his head down will stay down and the special units will storm the hill under sniper cover. after that theyll set up a defensive perimeter and dig in. the snipers will join them and will be able to spot enemy movements and arty. theyll send it through to our arty and theyll launch an bombardment.

[Julian the apostate]

I think another question though is, is an advance at such costs really worth it. The sheer level of brutality in a level of attrition means that the enemy kills his own troops pretty rapidly. This is especially true of the brits and their allies as that the British navy could typically keep the germans bottled up out of sheer numbers. I suppose if you trained marines well enough you could land them in small numbers perhaps with mabye a 2000 strong force of regulars to hold a basis. The main line could prolly break to meet them and if the naval bombardment and land was strong enough i think they could be defended well from the sea and supplied.

show them the left and then hit them with the right.

plus is a hill really worth all the men that are lost over it. Some hills yes and some hills no

[The Stranger]

ofcourse you should choose your hills carefully, as your days of attack and your places of attack. Everything is worth something, youve just gotta make the descision if you are willing to pay its price...

[Warluster]

Remeber this is all with WW1 technology, Shelling, Barbed wire, underground caves,machine guns, cavalry maybe, but wouldnt they be ripped apart by the machine guns? And how could the men advance in a mass? Wouldnt machine guns and cannons hit one guy, and bring down 5 in the process? Meaning more a killed in a mass.

[Avicenna]

Almost forgot: all attacks to be held at night, when the mgs are useless.

Marius: making and holding a trench is not exactly helpful. The point of the Somme was
A) Kill as many Germans as possible
B) Divert Germans to there to relieve pressure on Frenchmen in Verdun.

[Pannonian]

If we're talking about the Somme, this was the battle where all the hard lessons were learnt. And they were learnt, extremely quickly, by the British command. There were commissars, or their equivalent, collecting information after each attack, relaying it back to HQ where a department was set up to make sense of it all. Tactics were changed from one day to the next, doctrine was changed from one week to the next, soldiers were routinely switched out of the frontlines to be trained in new weapons and new tactics. Huge numbers of training manuals were printed to disseminate these lessons.

These fancy tactics being advocated were the result of this staffwork. Before the Somme, these ideas weren't yet conceived. During the Somme, the soldiers were being asked to absorb too many lessons in too short a space of time. Given time to digest these lessons, they produced some beilliant successes at the start of Passchendaele, before the rainy season came prematurely and brought the offensive to a stop. On their next attempt, they produced the 1918 offensive, which was a marvellous example of how to keep a general combined arms offensive going seemingly forever.

[Kraxis]

The autumn offensive of 1918 was well planned and way better than any previous Allied offensive. However, it was greatly helped by the fact that Germany was dry... Their best troops were dead, wounded or captured after their own spring offensive. Which btw made way better progress for fewer losses. Had Germany had the Allied manpower for their spring offensive it would have been bleak for France.

Also while the autumn offensive ended the war it was also the bloodiest offensive of them all. But it carried on because both troops and leaders could see an end to it. Keeping it up would end the war soon, and it did. That was why the allied armies were willing to sacrifice themselves in drowes, something they had been terribly unwilling to previously (the French mutiny of 1917-18 for instance).

No in WWI terms the Germans had it rigth. They took what tools they had and made the best of it. The allies could have done the same, but chose another route, it was good as well, but not nearly as good (they still attacked over large fronts, good against weak enemies, bad against strong enemies).

We are at the Somme, we face a strong opponent, our artillery is not great at rolling barrages (not used on a large scale yet, and needing lots of training) and we don't have the time to train specialists like the stormtroopers (which I think would get overruled by our own leadership).
I can only think of the Schwerpunkt as something that could help us (good call Kage). It might not be perfect, but at least it would be something we could pull off right away if we had the idea.

[Pannonian]

We are at the Somme, we face a strong opponent, our artillery is not great at rolling barrages (not used on a large scale yet, and needing lots of training) and we don't have the time to train specialists like the stormtroopers (which I think would get overruled by our own leadership).
I can only think of the Schwerpunkt as something that could help us (good call Kage). It might not be perfect, but at least it would be something we could pull off right away if we had the idea.

We could go the Brusilov route and launch a carefully prepared offensive with limited but significant objectives. The Brusilov offensive actually preceded the Somme, and could have taught the British some lessons were liaising between the allies possible.

Brusilov offensive

[Kraxis]

The differecne is that the eastern front wasn't anything near the western front. The frontlines were so much longer that it wasn't possibly to have true trenchwarfare. Troops were dug in, surely, but all the battles were mobile.

There is no doubt in the effectiveness of the tactics and results of the offensive, but it simply can't be applied to the western front.
The arty is too inaccurate (doctrine has been on rate of fire, which is a lot easier to learn btw), and the density of defenders is too great. A wide front attack would simply cause more casualties for the Allies.
Also I severely doubt the casualties. Yes the Austrian forces were bust by then... obviously. But 3:1 against the Austrians and nearly 1:1 against the Germans. That is almost 4:1 losses in favour of the Russians, way way better than any other offensive of the war and only bested by the Germans in the much smaller Lake Naroch Offensive. Even Tannenberg is nothing in comparison.

So had the Russian offensive really been that great it would have ended the war right there. Just short of 2 million fighting men lost in two months when the total manpower on the eastern front was around 3 million for the central powers, if that at all.
Such a lopsided result would have meant a breakdown of the east and the Russians coudl easily have started a new offensive since they were now very much superior in numbers.

Obviously the losses were almost crippeling for the Austrians (they never recovered), but the German forces did very well for their part and when they did well against the Russians they gave at least 1:1 losses. So either the Austrians let te Russians do about 12:1 losses on them, or else the Russian figures doesn't add up. After all they were exhausted by the offensive, and exhausted means you can't find any more men, not a physical exhaustion (people recover within a few days unless they become metally unstalbe at which point they are either shot or written off as casualties). The Russians could find many more men than half a million. A total of around a million would still make it a supremely effective offensive. Oh well... we will never know I'm sure.

[Pannonian]

I thought the innovations of the Brusilov offensive were its secrecy (a predecessor of the famous maskirovka), its use of infiltration, its attacks on a broad front thus ensuring the enemy could see no schwerpunkt to concentrate their reserves against, and its use of short preliminary barrages instead of the usual week-long poundings. All of these were available to the west, and they were used in later offensives, most notably in 1918 (but also in 1917 and even in the later stages of the Somme).

[Kraxis]

Well, yes. They were indeed the innovations.

But it is much easier to achieve against fortified positions than gainst a continuous trenchline.
It was indeed this offensive that gave the Germans their ideas for the 1918 offensive. Or rather they expanded and adapted them to the western front. But just take note of how long they needed to take these changes into effect.

[Sirex1]

Send in infantry, covered by artillery fire a bit in front of them. Concentrate a large force on one specific area, while holding back plenty of reserves to try and hide the fact. Once the trench is broken into, a strike into the communications centre to eliminate the leaders. Then, do what would not be expected by the Germans and attack from behind. Of course, by this point, it's quite likely something's gone wrong and this force is destroyed.

This is what they were trying to do. Contrary to common belifes they actually managed quite well with breaking throught the first lines of defence. this was becouse artillery was massed and could quite well destroy and paralise the enemy. The mayor proplem was that the enemy could get reinforcment quiker wich you guys have said.

You must remeber that this was only 50 years sence the American civil war, were people still fought in lines and nobody moved untill order and there were no squads or lower formation of units. In ww1 leftovers were that the commands were still coming from the generals and not from locale officers. And there were also no quick safe communications.

This in effect meant that once an attack started the artillery covering fire usally fired to rapatly, leaving the infantry behind becouse they had no way to quikly update the artillery what was happening. When the breakthrough was made they needed to ask the generla or division commander or someone what to do after having reported on thier situaition. Which means that they needed to send a runner or a horse or something wich overall before the orders came back meant that it would take over 5 hours before any action could be made. Even if reinforcment was sent when the word get through they would still be hours away. while the enemy could report and counter-attack in less then 2-3 hours. As you all see this means disaster for the attacking force. This was only changed when the tanks came and the orders were to attack a far flung objective.


So what we could do gentlemen is to allow our officers to use what the german developed misson-type tactics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_control. And also station reserves closer to the front-lines and have them move once you think the forward troops would have broken through. And finally let the artillery lower thier timetables so that the infantry could be supported by a rolling line of flame.
All this could have been done in ww1, and was done by the germans when they developed infiltration tactics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiltration_tactics.

[Sirex1]

double post :(

[Avicenna]

This is what they were trying to do. Contrary to common belifes they actually managed quite well with breaking throught the first lines of defence. this was becouse artillery was massed and could quite well destroy and paralise the enemy. The mayor proplem was that the enemy could get reinforcment quiker wich you guys have said.

You must remeber that this was only 50 years sence the American civil war, were people still fought in lines and nobody moved untill order and there were no squads or lower formation of units. In ww1 leftovers were that the commands were still coming from the generals and not from locale officers. And there were also no quick safe communications.

This in effect meant that once an attack started the artillery covering fire usally fired to rapatly, leaving the infantry behind becouse they had no way to quikly update the artillery what was happening. When the breakthrough was made they needed to ask the generla or division commander or someone what to do after having reported on thier situaition. Which means that they needed to send a runner or a horse or something wich overall before the orders came back meant that it would take over 5 hours before any action could be made. Even if reinforcment was sent when the word get through they would still be hours away. while the enemy could report and counter-attack in less then 2-3 hours. As you all see this means disaster for the attacking force. This was only changed when the tanks came and the orders were to attack a far flung objective.


So what we could do gentlemen is to allow our officers to use what the german developed misson-type tactics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_control. And also station reserves closer to the front-lines and have them move once you think the forward troops would have broken through. And finally let the artillery lower thier timetables so that the infantry could be supported by a rolling line of flame.
All this could have been done in ww1, and was done by the germans when they developed infiltration tactics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiltration_tactics.

The tactics were implemented.. at near the END of the battle of the Somme.

Artillery was also not effective as you said. The Germans just stayed in their bunkers and had a hard time going to sleep, popping out when the shelling was finished. You also seem to miss out my first part. Bomb them until they're all dead due to starvation or they surrender. The rest is just a precaution.

By the way, why does the time lapse between orders given and implemented apply only to the Allies? I don't recall the Germans being less rigid.

[Sirex1]

The tactics were implemented.. at near the END of the battle of the Somme.

Artillery was also not effective as you said. The Germans just stayed in their bunkers and had a hard time going to sleep, popping out when the shelling was finished. You also seem to miss out my first part. Bomb them until they're all dead due to starvation or they surrender. The rest is just a precaution.

By the way, why does the time lapse between orders given and implemented apply only to the Allies? I don't recall the Germans being less rigid.

Yeah but you are missing my point, you won't stick out your head if the artillery is still firing on you. And if the artillery is hitting you but stops when the enemy is only 1-2 min away you got a proplem instead of 10 min. The artillery had proplem to be right in front of the infantry becouse no quiqe communication was available, becouse the infantry got behind in the timetable.

Your tactics can be used agaisnt you, did you know that they could activly bomb each outhers supplylines, but during the quite times they refused, becouse thier supply lines would be bombed in return. And thus only an attrition way, and not a way to make a succefull attack wich i think was the topic.

The germans sufferd from these proplems too, but not after they developed the infiltration tactics, in wich stormtroopers got in first and by passed strong defence to attack communication and logistic and the like, and also isolating defences wich the main infantry dealt with later on.

But you seem to know about the later allies tactics, could you please teach me some. I read Kerrigans ww1 book, but that wa a time ago and i don't really remember that tehy did any big cahnge in tactics untill the tanks came.

[Sirex1]

The tactics were implemented.. at near the END of the battle of the Somme.

Artillery was also not effective as you said. The Germans just stayed in their bunkers and had a hard time going to sleep, popping out when the shelling was finished. You also seem to miss out my first part. Bomb them until they're all dead due to starvation or they surrender. The rest is just a precaution.

By the way, why does the time lapse between orders given and implemented apply only to the Allies? I don't recall the Germans being less rigid.

Yeah but you are missing my point, you won't stick out your head if the artillery is still firing on you. And if the artillery is hitting you but stops when the enemy is only 1-2 min away you got a proplem instead of 10 min. The artillery had proplem to be right in front of the infantry becouse no quiqe communication was available, becouse the infantry got behind in the timetable.

Your tactics can be used agaisnt you, did you know that they could activly bomb each outhers supplylines, but during the quite times they refused, becouse thier supply lines would be bombed in return. And thus only an attrition way, and not a way to make a succefull attack wich i think was the topic.

The germans sufferd from these proplems too, but not after they developed the infiltration tactics, in wich stormtroopers got in first and by passed strong defence to attack communication and logistic and the like, and also isolating defences wich the main infantry dealt with later on.

But you seem to know about the later allies tactics, could you please teach me some. I read Kerrigans ww1 book, but that wa a time ago and i don't really remember that tehy did any big cahnge in tactics untill the tanks came.

[Pannonian]

But you seem to know about the later allies tactics, could you please teach me some. I read Kerrigans ww1 book, but that wa a time ago and i don't really remember that tehy did any big cahnge in tactics untill the tanks came.

The tanks were a comparatively minor part of the revolution in allied tactics. More significant was the rolling barrage, with infantry urged to err on the side of being too close rather than too far behind the barrage. Also, the development of advanced squad tactics, with a synergy of rifle, machine gun and bomb specialists, each covering for each other, and multiple squads attacking strongpoints, each squad capable of leading or working round the flanks, and rearranging as circumstances dictated. By the end of the war, the British and Commonwealth army in particular was probably as good as any infantry-based army could have been, given the technology they had, putting into practice all the various ideas that have since become established doctrine. I recommend Paddy Griffith's "Battle Tactics of the Western Front" for an illuminating read.

Welcome to Paddy Griffith's Web Site

[Csargo]

I thought the innovations of the Brusilov offensive were its secrecy (a predecessor of the famous maskirovka), its use of infiltration, its attacks on a broad front thus ensuring the enemy could see no schwerpunkt to concentrate their reserves against, and its use of short preliminary barrages instead of the usual week-long poundings. All of these were available to the west, and they were used in later offensives, most notably in 1918 (but also in 1917 and even in the later stages of the Somme).

One thing I think you haven't hit on is that fact that the Brusilov offensive was a very well planned offensive. More so than any of Russia's other offensives before this time. Especially with how they transported supplies to their soldiers. One of the reasons previous offensives failed is because of the Russians over extending their supply lines therefore causing the Russian advance to slow down and eventually putter out.

Just thought I'de mention that since no one else has I don't think.