For the American military, which WW2 front saw the most brutal combat?

>>31078235
The Pacific front
See: The Battle for Okinawa and Iwo Jima

>>31078245
Which battles on the Eastern Front were the most brutal?

>>31078259
Stalingrad, Kursk etc

The homefront.

#ArmyWives

>>31078272
For the Americans, you dumbass.

>>31078245
You forgot peleliu, where we took >20% casualties and the 1st marines were kicked so hard the next battle they fought was at okinawa

>>31078361
this, women are the primary victims of war

>>31078384
Because the Americans didn't fight on the eastern front dumbass.

>>31078576
because Americans werent in Stalingrad dumbass

Most yanks died in the European theatre.

Looking for most "brutal" combat is pretty fucking dumb since people dying in combat is always fucking brutal.

The Pacific probably had worse conditions due to tropical diseases etc, but dying from exposure in the Ardenes isn't exactly nice either.

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>>31078576
They fought in Europe, i.e. America's eastern front, you tremendous idiot.

>>31078693
Which WW2 battles did most Americans die?

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>>31078652
>>31078722
That's the Western Front you fucking retards, holy shit. Nobody calls the Allied push into Germany the "Eastern Front"

Jesus fucking wept.

The fighting in Normandy was often as brutal as anything else seen in the war, most people seem to think that it wasn't but that's not the case.

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>>31078235

>hot, sweltering heat on numerous remote jungle islands surrounded by salt water
>crazy merciless nips behind every rock that'd sooner be cooked to death by a flamethrower than surrender an inch of ground (these same nips that would willingly fly their planes into enemy ships btw)

The Pacific Theater by far, fuck that. I'd take my chances with the krauts

>>31078693
The Hurtgen forest was probably the most brutal fighting of the European Theatre that nobody ever talks about. It was a colossal fuck up that the forest was even attacked and displays huge levels of retardation and incompetence from the General Officers.

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>>31078740
>trying THIS hard

>>31078765

>implying he's wrong

The Italian Front saw mud as thick as soup and very well entrenched German positions

>>31078783

>Italian front
>well entrenched German positions

those are italians for you

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>>31078765
>being this retarded
The "Eastern Front," was in Russia, the"Western Front" was in France. We call it that, to differentiate between the two front the Germans were fighting on.

The Pacific Theatre was fought in the East. The European Theatre was in the West.

You're a fucking retard. It's still the Western Campaign.

>>31078722
You are almost certainly a troll

>>31078730
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_battles_involving_the_United_States

>>31078792
The Italians were so pathetic.

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>>31078810
>>31078811

>>31078761
Been there a few years ago. Still a nightmare forest full of craters, bunkers and signs "do not leave the path MINES"

They cannot clear all the duds and mines cause the german used glas for the mines so you cannot detect them.

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>>31078846

>>31078848
Glass also doesn't (or at least didn't) appear on X-ray back in the day. No wonder it's outlawed as a weapon.

My granddad told me about a guy he knew who was a tank driver in the British Army in WW2. His tank was hit, but not penetrated, while he had an optic system in front of this face. The glass on the optics smashed into a thousand microscopic pieces and went into his face. Because the surgeons couldn't find all the glass, for the rest of his life he'd occasionally catch his razor on the glass when he was shaving and cut his face open.

Battle of the Bulge

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>>31078997
>I just watched history channel

Dude, the "tough" part of the bulge was a mere two weeks. After that the germans were out of fuel.

The worst part was hurtgen forest b/c it denied the US their usual style of warfare (i.e. saving blood by throwing material at the enemy)

Also: Hurtgen started in september and lasted til february.

>>31078848

>They cannot clear all the duds and mines cause the german used glas for the mines so you cannot detect them.

kek damn that is fucked up.

How would they have removed them if they had won?? Sending waves of PoW's?

Did it ever occur to you all that the Italians were, under trained, had terrible commanders and most of all had absolutely zero moral. Fighting a war you don't want to fight for a dictator you hate isn't something the average man wants to do.

>>31078693
>dying from exposure in the Ardennes
How much of a fuckup does your army need to be to have people freeze to death in fucking france.

>>31079067
>Dude, the "tough" part of the bulge was a mere two weeks. After that the germans were out of fuel.
You must be a muhreen or a muhreen fanboy.

Doesn't matter how long the fight was. The question was how brutal. Over 89k casualties for the Americans sounds pretty bad. Seasoned German soldiers from the Eastern Front launching a last ditch attempt in one of the coldest European winters in history on allied lines, the majority of which were made up of green recruits who had yet to see combat.

And even then, if you want to talk about brutality, various Pacific battles do come to mind, as well as the Western Front battles for Bloody Omaha and especially the hedgerow fighting. Even then, Italy, "the soft underbelly of Europe", proved to be a tough nut to crack when German divisions were sent down to hold the line.

Or how about the American bombing campaign. The casualty rates were insane. The Ploesti oilfield bombings especially.

Get that ">I just watched history channel" shit out of my face.

Marines did. The pacific theater. It was the reason Truman nuked the japs 2 times.

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>>31079172
Awwww, somebody is butt hurt

>>31078235
Probably the Pacific, though neither was exactly a tea party.

>>31079172
>Italy, "the soft underbelly of Europe", proved to be a tough nut to crack when German divisions were sent down to hold the line.
That was moreso because the Allied commander in Italy was a two bit loser after all the players went to the Normandy campaign

>>31079172
savage

>>31079105

If this is b8, I'm taking it.

The same Army whose supply line was overextended in a heavily forested region of northern Europe which was experiencing it's coldest winter in decades where the wounded couldn't be evacuated as often due to enemy fire.

>>31079195
Mark Clark was a fuck up.

>>31078428
>peleliu

>Lt Col sees a handful of Marines sitting together in the grass
>"What Platoon are you men with?"
>"Platoon hell, we're C company sir."

That was a fucked up Island man.

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What was the toughest for the French

Most Brutal would have to go to anywhere fighting the Japs. Imagine fighting an army of 30,000 troops and then at the end of the battle you find out you killed 29,000 of them. An enemy Army that literally won't surrender.

The only Brutal fighting the Americans did was in the Pacific. By the time the Americans stormed the beaches the Wehrmacht was already near bled dry. Yes, the SS units that were left and the fallschirmjägers were tough opponents, but the rest were old men and young boys. Thats probably why America constantly hammers out how brave we were storming the beaches and parachuting in trying to minimize the amount of kid soldiers (15,16,17) we had to kill. Not saying they shouldnt but just that its a fucked up terrible situation

>>31079386
As a non-American I have a similar feeling towards d-day.

>>31079172
>You must be a muhreen or a muhreen fanboy.

Because he wrote that hurten was longer and harder? Are you high on crack, butthurt boi?

>>31079069
Probably. Today's hurtgen forest is one of the most mine-infested places in Europe. even the german EOD, who have tons of experience with all kinds of WW2 shit (particulary due to all the dud bombs in the cities they find each year) wont try to clear hurtgen because its virtually impossible. Even dogs have troubles finding those glass mines because after so many years theres too much soil over them.

Then again: This led to the hurtgen forest being a huge wildlife refuge.

If you ever wanna visit it, do it in october when its cold, rainy and foggy. Nightmare fuel without a single shot fired

>>31079386
Top meme

>>31079437
Your feelings are wrong. Most of the beaches were a cakewalk *except* for Omaha and Juno. "muh old men and boys" meme was relegated to Germany itself in 1945.

>>31079478
>cake walk
How come every American to ever talk about WW2 is so fucking drunk on patriotism. No that's just not fucking true.

>>31079105
The Germans died too.
And 20 years earlier soldiers from every army died in droves from exposure on the Western front.

Modern soldiers still go down with hypothermia despite things like goretex, lightweight shelters and thermals being widely available. It's simply part of being a grunt I guess.

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>>31079301
>9 men vs 5000
>9 men kills 200 and wounds 600
>results: armistice

what the fuck happened here

>>31079469
>hurtgen forest being a huge wildlife refuge
Now I'm picturing deer roaming around, until stepping on a mine. It's raining venison, hallelujah.

>>31078235
Japanese still think they did nothing wrong

>>31078235
Aww she too cute pls save cute Korean grills

>>31082233
What did they """""""""do"""""""""?

>>31082538
Fuck but then censor the fucking.

Shit is just wrong. Aliens would thing we have these weird morphing pixelated junk bro

>>31078576
>Because the Americans didn't fight on the eastern front
that's untrue. there was quite a few americans that were in pow camps that when liberated by the red army chose to continue the fight with the russians.

>>31078235
Italian Front without a doubt.

>>31079386
Have you ever read about the fighting from D-day until the breakout?

>>31081755
that's what you get when the french have no way to run

>>31084573
Have we discovered the ultimate fighting force?

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>>31085164
>tfw cornered frogs is the only way to stop the red tide

>>31085183
The real question is, how do we make this work with Italians?

>>31085189
>italians
>work

"the italians could march 20 miles to a battle and 40 miles away from one"

>>31078235
IIRC the pacific theatre had the most casualties due to mental shit, I guess that's one metric of brutality.

>>31081755
Italians ran into some very bad weather. The French didn't really even fire their weapons I believe.

>>31085339
you have to run into REALLY bad weather to take 800 men out of action. i mean the frogs must have done something right

>>31078428
We? You never fought in the war

>>31086101
How do you know that for sure, fagtron

>>31078235
The Pacific campaign was always nasty, but the Pacific in 1942 was especially nasty.

A bit of that came from American leadership not being up to par (esp. MacArthur and Kimmel), a bit came from the fact that fighting in the tropics is wretched in and of itself, and a bit came from the fact that the IJA had a scattering of cartoonishly evil staff officers (see: Tsuji Masanobu and his thralls) and a surfeit of easily pliable soldiers.

>>31078235
European theater, but not infantry combat. Air combat.

More airmen died over the skies of Europe than Marines in the Pacific.

Shit was hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhmFFtjB2qY

Iwo Jima
Guadalcanal
Fuck that shit

>>31078760
>5 miles above the earth
>so cold you have to wear an insane amount of layers, spit freezes and if you vomit in your 02 mask you're dead as there's no way to clear it once it's frozen
>no fighter escort for the whole way
>Endless German AAA barrages
>merciless german fighters that will shoot your parachute even if you bail out
>Even if you land safely you'll be hunted by the nazis and be brought to a hellish POW camp (or in the case of some unfortunate aviators) death camps like Buchenwald

600 Airmen lost in one raid alone, hundreds more lost in others. I'd take fighting nips over the skies of Europe any day.

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>>31088913
>grandpappy flew with 8th Air Force as an officer
>Ended flying 32 missions, the last 7 completely voluntary
>got hold of a logbook he kept detailing the crews he flew with and on what planes
>except for a few missions here and there, he flew with a single crew most times
>reading the roster mission-by-mission, see crewmembers occasionally drop in ones and twos
>then one mission 7 guys drop off the roster, noted as a crash landing
>over the entire thing, only grandpappy and the pilot he first flew with were able to make it from beginning to end

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>>31088992
damn anon, you got me tearing up

>>31078235
New Guinea

>>31078428
Don't forget rotten Tarawa

>>31086266
Coz you'd be a real radical oldfag to use the term "fagtron".

I reckon we'd get along alright, now that I think about it.

Monte Casino.

>>31082538
my grandpa gets mad when I ask he's Philippino.

>>31079334
They surrendered but the muhreens killed them anyway until they were promised ice cream for not killing surrendering Japs.

>>31078760
Most nips did not surrender because allies would kill them amyways

>>31079067
Hurtgen Forest was one of the biggest meatgrinders of the war.
It saw a ton of action before and after the Bulge, and all of it was extremely brutal.

>>31081755
>>31085339
>>31085365
Italians assaulted a fortress leftover from WW1 manned with a skeleton crew.
The largest weapon their commanders remember to bring was a light mortar.

>several charges into 9 men with machine guns later

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>>31090647
ice cream?

>>31078245
>>31078245
This

>>31081755
Each day the italians tried retarded things to cross the bridge guarded by the nine frogs.

I think at some point they even tried to "speed cross" the bridge using bicycles, of course they were mowed down by the french MG

>>31090685
You've got that backwards.
Allies learned quickly that any Jap surrendering was going to try to kill you.

>>31085339
The fuck you're talking about.

>>31090738
The fortress was under severe artillery barrage during several days though.

>>31090835
Bullshit. Japanese prisoners were often murdered in transit when they were no threat to anyone.

>>31078235
Does that even deserve a response? Wermacht didnt use live prisoners as bayonet practice

>>31079069
Yep, and left over jews that weren't deloused to death.

>>31079172
>Even then, Italy, "the soft underbelly of Europe", proved to be a tough nut to crack when German divisions were sent down to hold the line.

You said it yourself, Italy was a tough nut to crack because of Germans. When we talk about Italy's incompetence in war, we speak about Italians.

>>31081755
Wikipedia quality

>>31085339
What kind of weather? Was it raining bullets and mortar shells on them?

>>31090647
>until they were promised ice cream for not killing surrendering Japs.
Yep, sounds like the USMC alright.

>>31092579
>implying japs are people

bayoneting babies and keeping americans in hot boxes kind of gives them a reputation ya know.

>>31078361
are you high? women aren't the one's dying. fuck outta here.

>>31090647
To be fair the Japanese had a tendency of pretending to surrender and then blowing themselves up

>>31093531
But they lose husbands, brothers, and sons, anon.

>>31093470
It don't matter, those prisoners could be a source of valuable intelligence (and hand drawn pictures of anthropomorphized planes and ships)

>>31093613
Losing a loved one... or you yourself ceasing to exist. I'd much rather lose a loved one than die. GTFO with that "homefront" bullshit because most women at home left their man fighting abroad anyway. NOT all of them, but a large majority. It's called a Dear John letter and shits all too common, even for today.

>>31093651
MISOGYNIST!

>>31093651
Come on, it's 2016

>>31093710
Then goto Russian army. Men, women, everbody dies! Should appeal your sensabilities more Madame Butthurt.

>>31088992
God damn anon.

My great uncle Clarence was a navigator in a bomber, he died about 2 years ago. He was shot down over germany and was a pow in a camp, Stalag Luft III. Stayed there for about 8 months until they were liberated.

>>31078235
If we are going by combat loss percent it would be the western front as part of the USAAF. Over all a good way to die, more so for the Bomber crews.

> Just under 15,000 airmen were killed in stateside training accidents in WWII
> The 8th air force had a over casualty rate of 32 %, over half of which were deaths.
> for bombers crews only it was 44% casualty rate

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>>31093939
>responding angrily to old obvious b8
>calls other people butthurt

>>31092372
>HE A GOOD NIP HE DIN DO NUFFIN

>>31094401
>Be Ball Turret Gunner
>Be stuck in a squatting position for entire flight
>Have to make an emergency landing on the way back
>Can't retract the turret
>Can't use escape hatch
>Become skid mark on landing strip

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>>31094894
Have a picture of one such accident

>>31094894
How do you break the news to the ball turret guy?
>hey you know how the plane has wheels that fold out?
>well it doesn't.