WW1 Trench Warfare

>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
stagnation
>How could you have avoided it?
i'm not sure you could have
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
they did invent the earliest tanks at that time

>>130779781

>What made it so bad?
stagnation, filth, diseases and lack of proper resupplying
>How could you have avoided it?
Blitzkrieg, had it existed at the time
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
they did try different things, but trench warfare was deemed really efficient at the time, that's a reason why the french clung onto it until they lost WW2, that's when they realised trench warfare was completely inefficient against blitzkrieg

>>130779781

Trenches collected water when it rained. Even when not raining water would seep in. It was close to impossible to keep your feet dry as boots were not nearly waterproof. Soldiers often got "trench foot", think athlete's foot on steroids.

>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
Its a wet ditch
>How could you have avoided it
Shoot myself
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something
People are gay.

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>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
Attrition war. Both unwilling to resign.
>How could you have avoided it?
Take Paris, you were so close.
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
The western front was the experimental ground for air and tank warfare.
Also experimental warfare (birth of specialised CQC squads ie sturmtruppen, gas, canons) but also the testing ground for new weapons like the machine gun and the submachine gun.
So I wouldn't say they tried nothing, but the goal wasn't to win by taking anything, it was to win by killing more and be more resilient moraly than us.

It was a war declared by states and fought by men who did not dig it. It was the biggest example of disconnect between soldier and ruler.

The trench conditions were a lot worse on the ally side especially towards then end when the Germans were on the defensive. Just trying to get to the front lines would drive people insane.

>>130779781
Imagine thousands of unwashed men all cramped in a tight spot. Now imagine the millions of rats and other parasites roaming around, add some mud, a few dead here and there and not exactly modern medicine and you'll get the picture.
Couldn't. How the hell is infantry supposed to outmaneuver hundreds of machineguns and heavy artillery? The reason the French were getting mowed down in the beginning was because the dumbasses were marching in formation (Napoleonic style) towards German machineguns. Then came the tank and when it was reliable enough the fronts started moving.
All sides, especially the British (French were pretty much useless) tried EVERYTHING under the sun. Absolutely nothing could be done except attack, which meant heavy losses. It lasted for so long because all sides were evenly matched industrially (for the most part) it only ended when Germany could't keep up anymore with the combined industrial output of the Allies (aka the Anglos).
FYI, It's one of the most awesome and bizarre eras in history, check "The great war" channel on jewtube and you'll be pleasantly surprised

>>130779781
>Armies wear bright uniforms and stand and shoot at each other
>Machine gun is invented
>French still wearing bright uniforms.
>Nobody even has steel helmets to start with
>Fuck let's try different tactics
>Entrench
>What now
>Overthetop.jpg
>Much dead
>What now?
Rinse and repeat until a generation is destroyed

It did not start as trench war. It started with massive offenses similar to what we would see in the second war by both sides. Albeit missing tanks and planes. Tanks were a necessity that emerged to break the stagnation. Here's a nutshell for you.

1914 - baron Von schlieffen moves the kaisers army in a big fuck off wheel looking formation that quickly gained footing deep in French territory. Britcucks arrived on time to launch a counter attack, effectively saving Paris and pushing the wheel back. Big gains countered by enemy gains. Eventually all sides forced to halt around Flanders south into France all the way to the Swiss border. Austria Hungary fought Italy to some success but eventually they also grew stagnant. Russian front moved back and forth the most but by 1917 Russia signed a truce to go Soviet. America comes in and the influx of new forces and tanks effectively push the enemy into its own turf. Armistice signed in a train car completely redrawing Europe and breaking apart austrohungarian empire, Prussian empire, Ottoman Empire and leading to creation of Balkan states, secular turkey, Eastern Europe countries that would fall 26 years later behind the iron curtain. Germans forced to pay the war debts of all allies. Corporal Hitler hates this and prepares a political future that we all know ends where.

Only the allies side had terrible conditions on the front. Germans took their time and built decent trenches. Germans for the most part just played defensively and we're content for the majority of the war. Their downfall was not creating new tactics like the British. The British learned to use their tanks, artillery, and airplanes in unison and created a fast coordinated attack that overwhelmed the German lines.

>>130780494
>>130780190
nope. It's so important to stress the importance of weaponry- machine guns, artillery, barbed wire etc. proved far more powerful than any kind of offensive weapon. Weaponry favoured the defensive side. The only offensive weaponry that they knew were cavalry (eats shit against machine guns), literally running forwards at them and like, blimps or something. And if it turns out that you can't go forwards and you can't go backwards, you sit tight and wait until the bad guys starve/get blown up/surrender.

Also, tanks only came in at the final stages of the war and even then they were shite. most tanks were not long enough to clear 2m trenches (they fell in, never to be gotten out again), many had no offensive weaponry, they had shitty armour that didn't stop bullets on many occasions, had the pace of an awkward jog/walk thing and couldn't even turn while moving.

>>130781375
Good post

Vimmy ridge nigger

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>>130779781
The realities of early 20th century warfare made the open battlefield a very dangerous place to be combined with the tactics of the time. Early offensives in the war were quick and mobile until the German momentum ran out and dug in, the French doing the same. With fields raked by machine gun fire and and the ever present threat of artillery and entrenched opposition the only safe place was in a trench. Trenches were muddy, filthy, awful places to be in, but for all their horror trenches saved lives.

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>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
No real movement of the front lines on the west front
>How could you have avoided it?
mobility, mobility is key.
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
they did just the technology wasn't there for mobility on either side until the near the very end of the war and even then in some aspects it was with only limited results, trench warfare has a history dating back to the Napoleonic wars, american civil war, and a real interesting read would be the Crimean war look it up. The Crimean war has so many similarities that prelude to ww1. Just that tech wasn't there at time dude and trench warfare like i said was years in the making but at the time no one could've foresaw how so many young men would've died a massive war of attrition. Wouldn't be until 2nd world war that the height of trench warfare started to come to end.

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>>130781665
A leaf.org

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>>130779781
>>What made it so bad?
live in a dirt/mud hole for an extended period of time
have some people a few hindered yards away shoot at anything that pops up out of the hole
have artillery rain down on you every so often
>>How could you have avoided it?
pull back
>>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
like what? they literally invented tanks (pic related) to try to combat it but the tanks were terribad. they moved at a walking pace, they were unreliable to the point that the first tank charge lost half its tanks before it even started due to mechanical issues or getting stuck, they weren't all that great on rough terrain, they were pretty lightly armored

>>130779781

>How could you have avoided it?

Since we're arguing in totally hypothetical scenarios, one way how we could have avoided it was an early rush victory on one front. The entire german strategic plan was to quickly overrun france and then focus all of our strength towards the russians. This was part of what is now dubbed the "Schlieffen-Plan". The plan included to quickly invade the Belgians, to flank the french lines, and then to push towards paris from the north.

The plan was actually working quite well, we did push through Belgium and we did push inwards France. However the german military command (Generalsstab) did not expect the russians to set up their armies as fast as they did. Our command feared that they russians would push with their armies towards east prussia and if they could take that, then they could probably march towards Berlin without much effort. The entire area of prussia and pommern is lacking any thick forests or mountains, which makes it difficult to defend. So what our military did was to take units from the western front and relocate them to the east.

This unfortunately completely stopped our advances towards paris and was mainly the reason why the german armies on the western front began to dug in. Our units were outfitted with shovels, which made the entire trenchwars thing possible in the first place.

The infuriating thing is that the troops from the western front weren't even needed. In the battle of Tannenberg (or the miracle of Tannenberg how it was called later on) we completely stopped the russian adavances, forcing them to retreat back into their own territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg

Again, since we're talking in hypothetical scenarios, hadn't we relocated troops we might have taking paris and by that might have ended the war on the western front prematurely.

>>130779781
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?

They tried hundred of different things actually, some of them working and being the dawn of modern warfare (squad level tactics, suppressive fire, frogleaping, armored assault, etc...)

>>130781375
The best thing was that hitler made the french sign the capitulation in the same train car that was used for the capitulation of germany in ww1. kek'd so hard when i saw the video

>>130779781

>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?

That's a misconception tbqh. All sides did their best to innovate as early as a few months into the war. Application of airplanes, hot-air balloon spotting, mass deployment of submarines, and infantry doctrine all saw huge leaps forward, the problem was implementation.

As an example, lets look at Blitzkrieg in the battles of France and Poland in WW2. The krauts spent half a decade gearing their armed forces entirely around it, yet even with all of that preparation, they were still short on tanks and mobile infantry during both operations.

The Western Front in WW1 was fucking massive, with tens of millions of men already deployed in good defensive positions and nowhere to maneuver. A few experimental tanks wasn't going to cut it, entire new industries needed to be built up to support them in any appreciable numbers.

Being on a total war footing is rough shit, you can't just immediately retool your war industry to create new weapons just because you know your current ones aren't cost-effective.

If you want an illustration of how quickly tactics were evolving, look at the Eastern Front, shit was cash. It just wasn't applicable on the Western Front.

>>130779781
What is this, /his/?

>>130779781
> What made it so bad?
The lack of effective tactics to brake the strangleholds meant that any gains would cost so much that they would not be able to afford holding the new territory from counterattack.

This meant that the soldiers sat passively being shelled. And being passive makes everything much worse.

> How could you have avoided it?
By shooting some brits in the foreign dept. and have cooler heads prevail and sign an armistice in 1916, and then hash out a peace treaty later. Nobody lost, nobody won, and we're certainly not doing THIS shit again.

Unfortunately, the Anglo smelled Aryan blood, so we all know what happened.

> Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying anything different?
They did. The Germans figured out how to use infantry to roll up trenches by the end, and the British made tanks.
The real problem was that communication was almost impossible at the level of WW1. The Germans solved it with giving the lower platoon leaders more authority. This gave people like Rommel a chance to shine. And yes, this means that the much vaunted MUH AMURRICAN MILITARY TRADITIONS that some people like to brag about was stolen whole cloth from the Germans. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course. Doing the smart thing is smart.

But we could have had peace in 1916, and the old Empires still hanging on and not have this retarded Democracy bullshit. But nooooo, the US had to SPREAD DEMOCRACY. And so we ended up with Hitler and Mussolini. Luckily the Americans learned and never pulled that one again.

>>130781520
>The downfall of the germans was having too comfy trenches
>yfw it's actually quite accurate

Much like WW2 thge Germans were busy pushing Russia's shit in

>>130779781
>tfw you really like the Maginot Line and wish it would have been more useful
Look at diagrams of that fucking thing holy shit it's like a moon base across the damned border

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>What made it so bad?
20. century technology like artillery and machine guns vs. 19. century military tactics like mass charges.

>How could you have avoided it?
Mobility mostly, I would say. Of course to successfully coordinate this requires its own kind of technology and military organisation. Self-initiative wasn´t exactly approved then.
IIRC one of the mayor factor that led to the russian defeat was the complete lack of any action without approval from high command.

>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
Tradition and old timers, so to speak. Also circumstances, I guess. Germany lost precious time defeating the Russians in the east. When they were able to fully concentrate on the west the situation already had petrified. (and they still came close to make significant breakthroughs a couple of times).

>>130782218
The only thing that makes it funnier is that the Germans went around it the LAST time, so...

>>130779781
>What made it so bad?

The Jews.

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>>130782076

You'll take your liberty and like it strictly worse Finland!

>>130782295
Hon hon ho- oh nooo

>>130779781
>>130781126

Now imagine that you do manage to push forward and take some ground. Good work, now you have enemies on your sides and no way of telling your superiors that you have moved forward outside of pidgins (lol) or sending some poor bastard back towards your lines while praying that he doesnt get shot by the enemy, or your own side.

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>>130779781
>>What made it so bad?
I'm trying to find the right word for it but the trenches were poorly..irrigated? they didnt think about water. it fucked up so many soldiers.

>>How could you have avoided it?
better planning.

>>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
each side tried something different all the time hence why the maginot line was constantly changing.

>>130782076

>But we could have had peace in 1916, and the old Empires still hanging on

By 1916 that would've been fucking impossible except in Britain's case. Nicky's regime was essentially ded even before the war started thanks to him being too lenient on the Communists, Austria-Hungary was fucked even if it hadn't entered the war, and the kike subversion of the German crown through Marxism was already well underway and Willy was an awful Kaiser.

If anything, we would've seen Communism gain a much larger foothold in Europe.

>>130782076
The US fucked a lot of things, but giving Germans Democracy was all on the Jews

>>130779781
its fucked cause ww1 wasn't that long ago. look how far we've come with weaponry and machines.

>>130782057
yeah god forbid we have a decent discussion on /pol/

>>130779781
>try something different

We did. Britain invented the tank. Ww1 moved from mass infantry battles, to trench warfare sale mate to mass industrialised mechanised warfare with combined arms at the end.
Brits pioneered creeping barrage, armoured assault (we named the tank)

>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
Your ancestor didnt die and got to come home and put your other retarded ancestor into you other ancestor

>How could you have avoided it?
cancer, slow painful cancer

>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
Your mums fat cunt was blocking/smothering the way

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>>130781736
This design is so poorly thought out, it triggers me.
>Air tube into gun
>Gauntlet with compass on trigger hand instead of the forward
>Face guard removes any chances of aiming or keeping situational awareness
>Sidearm stored in cluttered fashion/unable to pull and react
>Shoulder guard?

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>>130779781
>>What made it so bad?
Stagnation, filth, diseases, officer class that was elevated to its position due to social class rather than merit and generals who believed in Napoleonic memes of warfare. (such as running was bad for morale, a soldier taking cover will remain in cover. etc.)

>>How could you have avoided it?
At the contemporary level of technology it couldn't have been avoided. For example blitzkrieg was reliant on air support which wasn't technologically viable when the war started and tanks that could move faster than a walking soldier which they couldn't.

>>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?

They tried all sorts of things but it all came down to the fact that generals in their HQs miles from the front were moving pieces on the map and trying to solve a 20th century problem with 18th early 19th century manuals.

>>130781721
This is a decent summary but saying it was about tactics is incorrect. It was about weaponry.

Both sides had huge amounts of very powerful artillery and no real way to counter it.

So when the lines crashed, and the infantry got hit by 6 pound bombs from 10km away, they dug in.

There was no way around this for until the appearance of specialized miitary planes and fast tanks which could strike where the artillery wasn't aimed and wasn't completely obliterated by shrapnel.

Machine guns didn't have as big of a role as people imagine, I've read figures of over 80 and even 90% deaths from artillery alone.

WW2 was about tactics, WW1 was about developing completely new tech to defeat the overpowered old tech

>>130783220
>expecting logic from steampunk nonsense

you done fucked up

>>130779781
Rotting feet, dead friends, mass slaughter.

Trenches were really gross. It had dead bodies and poop, just like in India. You basically had to sit for weeks in that disgusting filth then you had to feel terror for hours as artillery bombarded you.

That's why so many WW1 soldiers went crazy.

>>130781575
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_FT

Best shit

Romania tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wGQGEOTf4E

>>130783525
Love those, wouldve hated to be the guy in it tho.

>>130779781
That pic actually makes it look kinda comfy desu

>>130781721

imagine putting your life on the line over a square foot of this blasted, desolate, alien hellscape

endless mud infused with pulverized metal, cordite, horses and people, that would suck you in to a death that would make mustard gas seem preferable

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>you will never have to participate in trench warfare

Forever thankful to the divine

>>130781721
>the dead marshes in LotR was inspired by Tolkiens platoon marching and seeing dead germans and brits in the water

>>130781375
>Britcucks arrived on time to launch a counter attack, effectively saving Paris and pushing the wheel back.
Nope. The Belgian unespected resistance saved Paris, and the Brits played a tiny role during the first Battle of the Marne.


>Germans forced to pay the war debts of all allies.
By the US bankers who forced the signing of the armistice, otherwise the plan was to erase Germany, preventing the WW2.

>>130779781
Holy fuck what idiot drew it so swirly? It was clearly a zig zag formation, normies like this trying to get into le WW1 Historyan heer guyz!? after playing Battlefield 1 are seriously pissing me off

>>130783915
There probably were brief moments it was pretty comfy relatively speaking. Four years is a long time.

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>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
Supports never threw ammo and medics never revived
>How could you have avoided it?
Make a forced tutorial for all new players and teach them how to resupply/revive
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
EA wants to extend the longevity of their game as much as possible while keeping it samey so they can sell you the next game in a couple of years with all the new features that totally couldn't be in the current one.

>>130782057
Clearly we need more "u mad white boi BBC racemixing" threads.

>>130779781
>>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?

They even resorted to chemical weapons to break the deadlock.

Unfortunately, defence in depth meant the trench network was miles deep behind the front lines.

>>130784155
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_FT
don't forget the slight bulge on the sharp corners to lead the explosions away from the soldiers in the trenches causing little compartments in the row.

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>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
- Shit, piss, water, corpses, body parts, flies & mosquitos all around you (Awful sight, smell and very unhygienic
- Constant stress from artillery shelling
- Hopeless suicidal charges
- Likely to get killed as soon as you pop your head out of it
- Lots of diseases (trench foot, etc)
- Occasional chemical attacks

>How could you have avoided it?

As a normal person i couldn't really have avoided it, however as a general/leader:

- Less waste of manpower into constant suicidal charges
- Try to bait opposition into offensive and slowly bleed them dry (periodically give small amounts of ground to reinforce their feeling of progress on the offense otherwise they would give up on attacking)
- More focus on new tactics and weapons (creeping artillery barrage, planes, tanks)
- Prepare for massive big push after attacker is weakened in terms of manpower and morale.

>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?

Whenever your nation survival is at stake, generals like to be conservative and stick to what they have know for so long. Takes awhile for them to wake up to the new reality of warfare.

>>130781375

I have one problem with this:

For one, Alfred von Schlieffen did not "move" the German Army to attack France, von Schlieffen died even before the war started! The thing with him was that he drew up the plans for Germany to deal with the alliance of Russia and France. It's a shame because, given the answer's we've seen for trench warfare, it's clear that the defensive position is far more valuable, I think the German's could've won with a blistering offence if they went all or nothing against the French in Alsace-Lorraine with a vast amount of their forces, build defense parameters to deal with the incoming invasion, Trenches would be insanely effective against such an army and counter-attacked after softening up the advancing army from Alsace-Lorraine. With enough luck, the German army reaches Paris and either win or has to fight a government in exile in Bordeaux with questionable ability.

This would also make it harder for the British to declare war on Germany, vis-a-vise Belgium. I still think they might've found a way to get involved regardless of Belgium being attacked or not, but that is moot.

If Germany had adapted to the times and used it's technology effectively then we might've seen a far different world then we have today.

>>130784097
They were 1 of 7 allied armies in the Battle of the Marne, and they didn't shit the bed like a few of the French armies did in the Battle of the Frontiers

In numbers - unimportant, in direct effect on the battle, positive but not battle turning. The biggest thing is that they ensured that Britain was going to be a big part of the continental war and that's what ended up winning the war

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>>130779781
>>130784010

My great grandfather fought in Verdun, all of his friends died, many from gas attacks, he couldn't walk straight without jittering until his death in 1995.
>pic related from his album, it reads "The result of grenades at Verdun" refering to artillery as in german we called artillery shells "grenades" as well

>>130779781
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
They tried various gases, like mustard
They tried new artillery with extra aoe and shockwave
They invented the use of aviation in war
They invented the tank
They tried to do tunels and ground charges
They tried to send animals with bombs
They invented the flamethrowing armored vehicles
They tried mass assault
New howitzers, new bombs, the extensive use of zepelin to scout and bomb

>>130784874
And increasingly larger scales of attack and shelling thanks to improved industrial production.

>>130781813
the absolute madman

>>130783374
> Commie intelligence
Machine guns doesn't kill. They prevent you from moving anywhere so that the artillery can kill you.
Their job isn't to hit people to begin with. I mean, if they do, great, but that's not their role.

>>130779781
>>>/k/

>>130785279
This.

The last thing you want to do when you are under fire from a machinegun is to remain in it's field of fire.

You either run away from it or hide behind some cover.

>>130784724

I should have worded it better. I also neglected the Belgian resistance that the schlieffen plan did not expect. But it is true that the major minds behind the Kaisers army were long dead. Von schlieffen and Bismarck primarily built that war machine and by the time they were gone it was up to Willy and his Prussian Academy generals to oil and maintain. Germany had a great technological advancement over the allies, it's debatable how well they used it. But we agree.

I have to give them credit for effective u boat use. And their Air Force triplanes were hella good. Arguably th best pilots in Europe only the infant RAF could go toe to toe with. Subs and Zeppelins could have been used better vis a vis the front.

>>130782076
>Unfortunately, the Anglo smelled Aryan blood, so we all know what happened.

Read about the July Crisis It was the Germans and Austrians who went out of their way to push for war knowing full well the consequences.

>At that meeting of the Crown Council, all involved were in full favour of war except Count Tisza.[58] Count Tisza warned that any attack on Serbia "would, as far as can humanly be foreseen, lead to an intervention by Russia and hence a world war".[57] The rest of the participants debated about whether Austria should just launch an unprovoked attack or issue an ultimatum to Serbia with demands so stringent that it was bound to be rejected.[58] The Austrian Prime Minister, Count Karl von Stürgkh, warned Tisza that if Austria did not launch a war, its "policy of hesitation and weakness" would cause Germany to abandon Austria-Hungary as an ally.[58] All present except Tisza finally agreed that Austria-Hungary should present an ultimatum designed to be rejected.[57]

>Starting 7 July, the German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary, Tschirschky, and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Berchtold held almost daily meetings about how to co-ordinate the diplomatic action to justify a war against Serbia.[59] On 8 July, Tschirschky presented Berchtold with a message from Wilhelm who declared he "stated most emphatically that Berlin expected the Monarchy to act against Serbia, and that Germany would not understand it, if ... the present opportunity were allowed to go by ... without a blow struck".[59] At the same meeting, Tschirschky told Berchtold, "if we [Austria-Hungary] compromised or bargained with Serbia, Germany would interpret this as a confession of weakness, which could not be without effect on our position in the Triple Alliance and on Germany's future policy".[59]

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>>130780808
>disconnect between soldier and ruler
great example of this is pic related
soldiers from both sides just stopped fighting on Christmas and went out in the middle and met peacefully
they also agreed to let each side gather and bury their dead
this wasn't universal, it only happened in some areas
there was also a soccer game in one place apparently
needless to say some of the higher ranking officers were mad

>>130785695

The Hungarian Prime minister was the most switched on guy and the strongest supporter for peace plus he had the right view on the Balkans

>Tisza opposed the expansion of the empire on the Balkan, because "the Dual Monarchy already had too many Slavs", which would further threaten the integrity of the Dual Monarchy

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>>130784782
Three of my grandfathers fought in Verdun, two on the french side and one in the german one since he was alsacian, I guess they were lucky as fuck to survive that (one of them was hit by a shell that perced through his adrian helmet but survive), even more lucky was the alsacian one since the german army didn't rotated its troops in Verdun

>>130782774
> Nicky's regime was essentially ded even before the war started thanks to him being too lenient on the Communists,

Lenin and Trotsky were exiled in Switzerland, Stalin in Siberia. Not only that but Nicky had a well equipped and loyal army that had recovered from the defeat against Japan. Whilst it was ill prepared for war in Europe it was perfectly capable of defending itself. Indeed even in 1917 in the mess it was in it managed to smash the Bolsheivks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Days

Nicky pissed everything away.

>>130780282
Its not just a ww1 problem. Soldiers still dig in to this day. It's not a simple ditch. Take a look at some aerial photos of the Ukraine/Russian border right now to see their style.

In the Falklands trench foot was the number 1 cause of casualties. If you want to hide from bullets and artillery and mortars there's no more practical way then to dig, once your offence is over and you want to hold and defend the ground you took

>>130781241
Have written memoirs from Great Grampy, could not imagine. WWI was by far most blatant waste of human life in recent history

>>130785764
I hate the French. Just looking at this picture makes me think WW1 wasn't a mistake at all, but necessary to wipe that French smug right off their faces.

I know that in history there were a FEW good French. In other news a black guy invented peanut butter.

The problem in ww1 was the attacking tactics needed to catch up. And they did

>>130786135
Why does your flag say Myanmar? That looks like Taiwan.

>>130783719
at least they had the foresight to enclose the engine unlike the british WW1 tanks that had it just sitting exposed in the middle of the crew compartment

>>130786294
Old flag Republic of Burma, pham

>>130786467
Why's the old flag here?

>>130779781
>What made it so bad?
Disease, noise, being forced to go over the top, boredom, smell. Shit like the Pals Battalions also meant that you could see all your friends die in a few days.
>How could you have avoided it?
In Britain there was only two years of conscription. If you were doing important work, were sick or crippled or had moral objections you could get out of service.
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
They did change tactics, a lot. Look at the french at the beginning of the war, they were still using cavalry charges. Tanks were developed, things like the Stormtroopers came about. The main reason nothing seemed to work was because all the best weapons were defensive and there was no good counter against them.

>>130779781
>>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
Are you dumb? What else was there to try.
They scouted each other with animals, planes, balloons. Dug tunnels to the enemy side and filled the end of it with explosives. Manufactured tanks and all sorts of whacky weapons. They rushed the no mans land when they thought they could. The German-French line was a race to the sea because both sides wanted to dig around the others flank. What do you think they should have tried.

>>130786467
why does the old flag have a stalk of corn

Military tactics at the time heavily favored the defender because thete was a revolution in firearms but not vehicles.

>>130786502
Ask Hiroshim00t

>>130786952
Ask Aung San Suu Kyi

>>130779781
>>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
they did

>>130786886
2nd battle of messines is the first great success of late war tactics and was used as a model for training officers from then on. But the follow up battles were given less and less time to plan and for logistics to catch up leading to the massacre at passendale which has overshadowed it

>>130779781

Most of them were cannon fodder.

That makes it pretty fucking bad..

>be inna hole
>it stinks always
>get bombed for days straight
>get permanent twitch
>can feel yourself rotting
>get to watch all your friends slowly rot and die
>if you get out of your hole you are killed
>at any moment you could be forced across open ground against a machine gun
>if you refuse you are shot
>you and everyone else knows you are fighting for literally nothing
>if you speak up you are shot
>always wet
>you just got shot for taking piss and standing up to high
>general thinks you are trying to get out when you your shitty helmet barely saves you from shrapnel

Dunno senpai

>>130787582

Kek

The seeds of WW1 were sown in 1848 with a Jew backed 'workers uprising' in Sicily. What made WW1 so bad was the Maxim machine gun. It lasted so long because they had the men who could be ordered to their deaths, and to resist meant you were executed as a coward. It could not have been avoided due to concerted manipulation of the masses by the Jews.

What do they use today instead of trenches?

>>130787837

trenches >>130786128

>>130787837
Proxy wars

File: WP_20170219_008.jpg (2MB, 2592x1456px) Image search: [Google]

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>mfw i live a few km from the trenched
>mfw You can still ses the layouts
>mfw i still find bullets, grenades, wine bottles from 100years ago

Feels good man
Pic is one of the galleries used during the Chemin des dames battle

>>130787837

Check out Ukraine war.

>>130779781
>>130781375
>>130784724

>PART 1

Von schlieffen Drew up the plans for the invasion of France in something like 1910. His hypothesis for the plan was that Russia would take 6 weeks to mobilize its troops to send to the eastern front (As Russia was allied with France). He therefore based his plan on defeating the French within that 6 week period. He dedicated smaller amounts of troops to the Eastern front and huge amounts to the Western front.

The hatred between France and Germany in 1914 was due to the 1870's war in which Germany (Prussia at the time) seized French territory. After claiming the new territory's Germany thus became a nation with all Germanic provinces uniting under Wilhelm the first. National service with implemented in both countries (France and Germany) because of the uneasy peace that it had created and both countries bore huge armies. The German's indoctrinated expansion and the French indoctrinated revenge.

To ensure that the Germans did not repeat the same attack again the French army built huge fortifications across the entire border of Germany in places like Verdun. Von schlieffen new how hard they would be to conquer. Further up north Germany and France no longer border as smaller Belgium divides the two nations. Now if i am not mistaken - Belgium was deliberately allowed to remain and act as a buffer nation after the defeat of napoleon bonaparte. This was a British tactic to divide the seas with weaker nations to make sure that British fleets still ruled the waves. Belgium was also though to provide peace between bigger countries.

>cont

>>130786234
Keep crying fat ass

>>130779781
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
they did try different things. ended up with seasoned killers conducting trench raids at night

>>130779781
>>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
Germans invented terror bombing civilians and gas shelling
Brits invented the tank

>>130786128
Also americans use trenches?

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>>130787951
Here's a picture of one of the many trenches.
It's way steeper/deeper than what it appears. The pic doesn't do it any justice

>>130788073

>PART 2

The fortifications therefore ended at the line where Belgium begins. Von schlieffen's plan now was to march through Belgium, Approach Paris from the north capture it and then flank the French army from behind. The French army would then be fighting on 2 fronts. i cant remember the exact ratio but - of the German army on the western front a ratio of something like 70% was intended to march through Belgium and the remaining 30% was to rely on the fortresses. BUT Von schlieffen died before the war began and a more cautious general took his place. The new General divided the western front into a new ratio of about 50% to go through Belgium and 50% to remain on the front.

The British who had signed a defensive pact with Belgium obviously had to join in at this stage with a small army. The Belgium army slowed down the German advance and eventually the British Army slowed them again at the battle of Mons.

The German army got as close as 30 miles from Paris. BUT if the new general had have stuck to the exact plan that Von schlieffen wrote years before, by dedicating more troops, Would Germany have won the war in 6 weeks?

>>130785714
All these ((democracies)) and ((monarchies)) and yet only bolsheviks openly called Great war bullshit where idiots kill each other for rich people interests from day 1 and demanded to stop it.

>>130779781
Virtually nobody in high command had any previous experiences that could prepare them for the new aspects of warfare in WW1. And since they were mostly old codgers, they didn't adapt quickly.

>>130779781
Made it bad: disease and stagnation
Avoided it: I don't know, I guess it was the natural evolution from "stand out in front of these guys in a line and shoot" to "hey weapons are more accurate now, stand in a line in front of these guys behind some dirt and shoot"
Why did it last for 4 years: as terrible as trenches were they are still pretty good benchmarks of efficiency (easy to construct, provide decent cover, easy to supply and reinforce); hell trenches were so good that most of the war was spent trying to make and use weapons that would beat trenches (poison gasses, tanks, artillery)

>>130787951
Careful, a German may still be hiding in that hole.

>>130779781
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?
In 1917 there was a huge effort on mining and digging tunnels to the enemy's trench line, they'd then use explosives to destroy and rattle everything and everyone in the vicinity, I think this was around that town in Belgium on the far west.

The first half of the war was when basically everyone was marching to their slaughter. In the second half, it was still happening, but generals became a bit smarter and developed new tactics because the necessity was so great, both sides were running out of soldiers.

>>130779781
UNITE AGAINST THE KIKES

NEGROS STAY IN AFRICA

>>130784287

shut the fuck up retard

the real flaws of that game are crosshairs in third person camera in vehicles, knife buttons, grenade buttons, wewuz kaisers n shiet, mg42s on tanks, assault rifles everywhere

that game has less bolt action fucking weapons in it than cod2 fucking lmfao

fucking battlefield my fucking face

>>130782191
fucking germans

>>130781813
afterwards he packed it with explosives and blew it up.

http://www.e-bookdownload.net/search/now-it-can-be-told

the rich enjoy sacrificing the poor as they are all satanists. take a look at war graves, they are huge shrines to sacrifice. and for what? literally nothing

The American Civil War showed us what breach loading cannon and machine guns could do to massed troops. The only way to protect against that was with trenches.

It was only the development of armoured and air warfare that changed this, along with a switch of doctrine from pitched battles to siezing and holding defensible positions.

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>>130788094
Yeehaw don't you remember FRENCH FRIED day savd ur ASS in the WAR from VAGINAL FRANK hurr hurr hurr SILLY FRYRENCH FFRIERD

>>130784287
Pictures like these always excel in disgusting me.

>>130788888
This guy gets it with digits to back up

Trench warfare was direct consequence of technical development.
>Railroads caused that defender always had movement advantage over attacker, and movement is one of key points of successful attack.
> Machine guns caused that defenders always had small-arms fire supremacy. Fire supremacy is second key part of successful attack.
>Due to the increased industrial production, defensive obstacles were easily and massively deployed.
>Logistics became massive undergoing, often stalling any possible breaktrough. For example, AO and german troups failed fully pursue Italian army after its collapse after battle of Caporeto, since they had troubles supplying masses of troops with food and ammunition, causing delays after major breakthrough. (and this is considered one of the most successful operations of WW1.

I could carry on but then i could do it all day.

>>130788888
And yet you had to make the soldiers storm out of the trenches again and again to get mowed down.

>>130784287
WE

>>130788572
I wish there was. All of it have been looted for a long time now.
Coolest find so far was a german helmet with a bullet hole in it

>>130788499
>>130788499

They would have owned the western continent with the fall of Paris. Absolutely. Italy would have been left alone with island fortress Britannia. It could also be debated if a swift German victory forces Switzerland into the war or civil war because Italian and French speaking cantons would have wanted to help Italy at that point but German speaking cantons would have refused the thought. So with a Russian and Italian front to deal with, along with their then empowered Austria-Hungary allies, Germany could theoretically have won. But here's a point against this: the fall of Paris may not mean a Vichy style capitulation. I believe the French government would've moved west along with the front lines, with Paris to push them into revenge mode.

Tl;dr. Europe 1915 would look like Korea 1951 if schlieffen plan succeeded. Possible French break out in counter attack with allies like the Pusan perimeter years later. War might go til 1920 or America enters faster and war ends around same time.

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>>130781813
>kek'd so hard
indeed

>>130789112
WUZ

>>130789103

How else would you gain ground?

It was the only way to fight, so that's how they fought.

Ballistic/weapons technology was far ahead of battlefield mobility tech and armor at that point., in fact, the concept of armor had to be developed to deal with the situation.

>>130779781
>Why did it last for 4 years with no side trying something different?

What jewish BBC production taught you about the great war? The armies in 1918 were as different from 1914 as they were from 1945. New stuff was tried constantly but turns out war is hard when you have a pier level enemy in large numbers opposing you.

>>130788888

Sure. But fixed fortifications post American civil war is a testament to the stupidity of man. Especially with planes and blimps to bomb them before offenses. Trenches were honestly the best bet and to this day remain effective along with tunnels. No matter how advanced we get as long as humans fight wars we will dig in.

>>130789284
Good one Piotr

>>130789539
Tell that to Andre Maginot

>>130789539

True, like in Vietnam...

However WW1 trenches were only really possible because civilian populations were relatively safe. Once WW2 kicked in and the concept of Total War was applied trenchea became pointless.

America 'won' Vietnam not because it could capture enemy trenches, but because it didn't bother and instead razed their cities and infrastructure.

>>130789684

Tell bar lev that too. Even so both lines crumbled. Free French and American allies had to take maginots line to get to Germany and managed. Germany managed to just go around the damned thing.

>>130789763
What a bizarre post

If you didn't die to artillery fire you'd get hit by shrapnel, if that didn't get you a storm of bullets from a mounted MG would get you and if you avoided that small and for from the defender volleys would get you
If by some miracle you survived that, you'd likely get all sorts of diseases in your newly captured trench, before a counter attack Congress your way

>>130789825
I was agreeing with you

>>130779781
You have no idea how terrible simple rain can be.

>>130789963

Yeah not attacking you. Had to get another example in before someone else tried to argue for fortresses.

>>130789852

True though.

WW1 strategy was still very much in the mindaet of two armies meet on a battlefield, the victor then advancing and captueing enemy territory.

With the advances in air, naval and armoured warfare in WW2 nations could decimate each other's civilian and industrial centres without fighting costly pitched battles.

Thread theme for Germanophiles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL2sViclu4A

>>130790210
Absolutely nothing that post was true hence the bewilderment. Civies have been the primary targets of war since the bronze age. And the Vietnam stuff is honestly wtf tier.

>>130790160
Righto. On another note there were instances of trench warfare in US Civil War and Muh Russians in late 19th early 20th Cen.

Alot of people will forget Lee dug in before GTFOing

>>130789232
All that makes perfect sense. Hypothetically if the capital was moved the German army would do everything in their power to maintain control of the coast lines of France. If the British where there at this point there would be a forced 'Dunkirk' Style retreat back to Britain. At this point in the war the British army was tiny and Germany would have had more time to focus on its naval superiority. With Germany controlling the French coast there would be little opportunity of a British coastal invasion. Woodrow Wilson at this point was totally against the war and i cant imagine him entering if this scenario where to happen. I think that Germany could call a sort of victory here on German terms. I don't think Italy joined the war until a few months later? I think the war could be focused on the Eastern front and Austria Hungary maintaing its war with with Serbia.

>>130779781
>Pershing comes in and says everyone is being fucking stupid
>French tell him he's just killing his men and being wasteful with his strategies and tactics that "don't work"
>French cry they need more troops
>Pershing tells them to fuck off, they'll just use his men as cannon fodder
>b-b-b-but Pershing-San pls gib us some troops, we really need them!
>Perishing gives in "here's some you can command, you can even keep the niggers, I don't want them back"
>the same frogs that said Pershing was killing his own men then proceed to be responsible for 20% of all US casualties in the war - coming from a single battle

Fuck France.

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>>130779781
>what made it bad
If you didn't get shot or shelled you would die of diseases such as Trench Foot.

>>130790841
Pershing was a shit general and his ideas on open warfare were absolute nonsense. The french didnt get Americans killed. Pershing obsolete training did.

>>130779781
ISIS and Ukraine are modern trench wars.

Trenches work.

>>130779781
>How could you have avoided it
the same way they avoided it in ww2, tank warfare

>>130788394
>>130787951

Got anymore pics of the old trenches? I would love to see them.

>130791027
Not even worth a (You)

Best day of my life was when Pershing asked de Gaulle how Petain was doing.

>>130787951
Grampy did joint allied escape and evade sometime in the 50s at Verdun. Brought home some remnants. Glad to hear there is still reminders in the terrain

>>130779781
Changing the war meta is a very risky bet when it comes to continental warfare. The only country that even tried anything different were the Australians in Gallipoli.

>>130791346
So you have no response to how Pershing was a fuckup? Instead you have some racist personal anecdote, as if the American army hadn't completely abandoned Pershings 1917 shit in favor of french tactics and organization by 1940? I'll give you (you)s to points out your foolishness. let it be known far and wide the man with the french flag of crusading hates France but loves one of the more incompetent American military leaders.

>>130791853
Jej, you've made no attempt to explain how he was a "fuck up". Just admit you're an angry frog, spic or flip and be due with it.

>>130781375
>America comes in and the influx of new forces and tanks effectively push the enemy into it's own turf
This is incorrect. Germany started losing ground, but not a single enemy boot touched German soil.
America came in at the end when it was all over basically.
>Corporal Hitler hates this
M83 the entirety of Germany hated this. Modernist cucks swear the entire German nation are wrong about something that happened. Nigger if millions feel a certain way about something that happened you don't get to call it a misconception. Stab in the back was real.

>>130781520
>Not creating new tactics
Wrong. Germany created tactics so good they are used by muh greatest military (USA) today. Special forces or black ops type of stuff

>>130779781
the advent of the machine gun, really.

first time a water cooled mg was used was in ww2. En masse.

So this created the trench warfare.

Then add to the fact, that they had no vehicles at the time, that were fast and mobile enough to go over artillary shred terrain.

It was the perfect storm, and the generals at the time were obtuse. Believing in charging through barbedwire and shell holes, and through MG fire. To take a trench, that technically would be easily taken back over with reinforcements due to the way all the trenches were reinforced

>>130781520
well, germans didn't create tanks until after the english. But by then, it was too late

>>130792014

Meh I never said we invaded Germany. That said, at least they gave the world oxycodone in 1917. /kek

>>130792006
Nope just an America with actual knowledge of the subject being discussed. Unlike many itt who seem to view the great war with superstitious awe. I dont why you think Pershing who commanded nothing larger than brigade sized formations before going to france would be some god of war or that his archaic training for the prewar us army concerned with fighting indians, mudslimes, and mexican bandits would prepare him for unprecedented modern European war. Honestly he was much worse that haig, joffre or foch. Those guys were making shit up as they went along while Pershing chose to purposely ignore hard won knowledge about modern warfare for political reasons. Fuck him and fuck you.

>>130779781
>trench warfare
It sure as hell wasn't like in your OP pic. It was muddy. Machine guns killed everything above ground, and in the trenches men dug, fought, and faced certain death, sometimes doing all those things at once.
Then there was moral. When your buddy next to you is shell shocked and unresponsive you start to go insane yourself.
Search up shell shock. It's the result of people having their minds broken from fear and insanity.

>>130792006
>>130792820
Rekt

>>130789365
TRANCH SOULJAZ AN SHEIT

>>130781813
I keked hard when the russians raped half of Berlin 5 years later.

>>130792820
>just an America with actual knowledge of the subject being discussed

>as if the American army hadn't completely abandoned Pershings 1917 shit in favor of french tactics and organization by 1940

Nah, brah, you know jack and shit. French doctrine from WWI and the interwar period alone proves you are a shit for brains. French doctrine actively discouraged low level initiative by squad and platoon commanders, the exact opposite of what there was in both the Mexican-American War and what both the US and UK displayed in WWI and WWII. Fuck, nigger, not even the French kept up with speed of English or German tactics throughout WWI and routinely fell into the trap of getting engaged in pointless skirmishes and protracted battles that were, from the very start, known to have been initiated by the Germans simply to bleed them white.

>organization

Holy shit where do you get this bullshit you're spouting? The French army hadn't even adopted fire and maneuver tactics at the start of WWII let alone the interwar period when Anglo nations had it down. The less said about the differences between armored doctrine, the better. While the US still thought of MG tanks and GOTTA GO FAST nonsense, the Frogs went heavy independent units which proved disastrous as the krauts figured out quickly that they had no staying power on the field and after initial skirmishes were simply bypassed.

>Pershing who commanded nothing larger than brigade sized formations before going to france

For fucks sake you dumb nigger, even the god damned MPE was division sized. Just fucking kill yourself you know nothing hack.

>>130781813
>>130793621

a turk arguing with an african about european history

boy, pol does make me laugh sometimes

>>130784287

Man I was so surprised to learn that only 1 in 5 british troops was actually white. I'm so thankful that I know how truly diverse the front lines were.

Also, did you know that every infantryman had excess to experimental fully automatic machine pistols and light machine guns that they could fire accurately from a standing position?

Amazing just how wrong my school teachers had it. We really need to recognise just how many kangz and poo in loos died for our country.

>>130788094
>>130788899
so mad lol