The worst battle in history to be in as a soldier?

[General Zod]

The Revolutionary War would've been pretty bad, considering that most medical treatment consisted of amputating your limbs, or simply setting you up on a cot to bleed to death. Even WW1 had better treatment than that. Though admittedly not by much, considering the new ways of mutilating a soldier.

[General Soontir Fel]

Vicksburg as a Confederate. All the usual Civil War stuff, plus shelling, knowledge that no help is coming, and being reduced to eating mice and rats. And finally...

Summer. Mississippi. Thousands of dead bodies. Do the math.

[Medic]

Stalingrad was one if the, if not the worst battle to be in as an Axis or Allied Solider. The terrible conditions, poor nutrition on both sides. Lack of ammuntion, super-close quarters fighting. (Several thousand people were stabb/beaten to death as they were sleeping. Their awake comrades have just been killed a moment ago. Hundreds died in the same buildings as the battles raged forth street to street and back agian. On any given day possesion of most of the city could change hands. It was the longest city battle on record for men to fight and die that close to each other.

I have to agree with Stalingrad. Some soldiers tried to melt down boots and eat leather. Everything else mentioned, seconded.

Also, it was a sniper's playground. Wipee.

[drachefly]

Well, you've got the gruesome element covered pretty well, I'd say; but one of the most EMBARRASSING battles to be in would be the battle of New Orleans. On the order of ten thousand British soldiers killed or captured; on the order of one American casualty.

[Master of Ossus]

Well, you've got the gruesome element covered pretty well, I'd say; but one of the most EMBARRASSING battles to be in would be the battle of New Orleans. On the order of ten thousand British soldiers killed or captured; on the order of one American casualty.

Think that's bad? Think about what it would be like to be one of the Americans who died!

[CaptainChewbacca]

Well, you've got the gruesome element covered pretty well, I'd say; but one of the most EMBARRASSING battles to be in would be the battle of New Orleans. On the order of ten thousand British soldiers killed or captured; on the order of one American casualty.

Think that's bad? Think about what it would be like to be one of the Americans who died!

I think you mean the ONE American who died

I'd hate to have been in Okinawa or Cannae.

[Gil Hamilton]

According to my grandfather, Marine Corp veteren of the Pacific Theatre and Korea, the worst place in the world is the island of Okinawa. His diaries, which I own, don't go into much detail on the subject of the actual fighting.

[Akhlut]

A Muslim soldier defending Jerusalem in the First Crusade. Wait three months inside a city, wondering if those crazy crusaders were going to succeed, and then having them break through the walls and start slaughtering everything that moved.

[Civil War Man]

I would say:

Gallopolli
Passengal
Verdon
Stalingrad
The big battle between Napoleon and Czarist Russia
Gettysburg

In terms of the Civil War, there were a number of battles more horrific than Gettysburg was. The main horror of Gettysburg was that it lasted for 3 days, where most other battles lasted only a few hours. The heat didn't make it any easier, but we're talking about mid-Atlantic United States in July. Virginian battles in July weren't any easier in terms of heat.

In terms of bloodshed, battles like Fredericksburg (where many Union troops who weren't killed by bullets ended up freezing to death), Antietem (notable for being the bloodiest single day in the war), the Wilderness (due to many troops being burned alive), and Cold Harbor (for being the single bloodiest hour in the war) rank up with Gettysburg for various reasons.

[fgalkin]

Stalingrad was one if the, if not the worst battle to be in as an Axis or Allied Solider. The terrible conditions, poor nutrition on both sides. Lack of ammuntion, super-close quarters fighting. (Several thousand people were stabb/beaten to death as they were sleeping. Their awake comrades have just been killed a moment ago. Hundreds died in the same buildings as the battles raged forth street to street and back agian. On any given day possesion of most of the city could change hands. It was the longest city battle on record for men to fight and die that close to each other.

What about being a civilian in the Leningrad siege?

Oh wait, they had food.

125 grams of bread per day for a civillian, 250 grams per day for a soldier. While doing 12 hour a day shifts at the factory. Without heating, running water, electricity or sanitation. In -50 degree cold.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Glocksman]

The Somme.

Quite possibly the ultimate in command incompetence repeated again and again over near six months, over a million lives gone between the two sides, and almost no strategic gains made.

The principal Somme battlefield is a spooky fucker of a place, even today. It's an almost flat field with trenches at each end, you can walk from one front line to the other in a few minutes, and there's a single petrified tree, about halfway between the two, that has stood since the war.

Serving under an incompetent butcher like Haig just made it worse.

[Gaidin]

125 grams of bread per day for a civillian, 250 grams per day for a soldier. While doing 12 hour a day shifts at the factory. Without heating, running water, electricity or sanitation. In -50 degree cold.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Your signature closing statement just took on a whole new meaning...

[drachefly]

Well, you've got the gruesome element covered pretty well, I'd say; but one of the most EMBARRASSING battles to be in would be the battle of New Orleans. On the order of ten thousand British soldiers killed or captured; on the order of one American casualty.

Think that's bad? Think about what it would be like to be one of the Americans who died!

I think you mean the ONE American who died ;)

Okay, time to tone this back. The total troop strength of the Brits was around 10,000, not their casualties. But 'of the order' was about right, since they had 2600 or so casualties -- almost all prisoners and wounded.
And on the American side, it was 13 dead and 58 wounded.
So, a factor of 200 rather than 10,000.

But to make up for it, the Americans did this while outnumbered about 2:1.
And to add insult to grievous injury, this all happened after the treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, had been signed (the news had not arrived).


The approximately-zero figure I got was when I confused this with another hideously lopsided battle, the naval battle for the Philippines (against the Spanish). There were zero casualties from enemy fire, though I understand that some people were injured by an equipment malfunction. But that wasn't even close to fair, since it was a wooden fleet vs. a steel fleet. Only ST vs SW is more lopsided than that.

[Adrian Laguna]

I'll take the Somme over Verdun. Petain at least didn't order the first wave to march through no-mans land thinking the enemy would be flattened by the pre-battle barriage.

Then again, war is never really a cakewalk no matter how you look at it.

You mean that in Verdun the soldiers marched across no man's land like they were in a fucking parade? It might have worked by incapacitating the German machine-gunners with fits of laughter. Unfortunately, the preceding artillery barrage pounded the sense of humour out of them.

What I find to be so stupid about WWI is that half a century previous, General Longstreet had forseen that charging trenches was all shades of stupid, and had been proven right in Gettysburg when Pickett's charge was cut to ribbons, suffering approx. 60% casualties. For comparison, the Light Brigade of the famous poem, suffered 45% casualties.

On top of that, nobody outside the United States seemed to pay attention when General Buford rewrote the book on cavalry tactics. Cavalry still had its uses in WWI, due to lack of motorization, but those uses did not include charging the enemy.

[LadyTevar]

I would say:

Gallopolli
Passengal
Verdon
Stalingrad
The big battle between Napoleon and Czarist Russia
Gettysburg

In terms of the Civil War, there were a number of battles more horrific than Gettysburg was. The main horror of Gettysburg was that it lasted for 3 days, where most other battles lasted only a few hours. The heat didn't make it any easier, but we're talking about mid-Atlantic United States in July. Virginian battles in July weren't any easier in terms of heat.

In terms of bloodshed, battles like Fredericksburg (where many Union troops who weren't killed by bullets ended up freezing to death), Antietem (notable for being the bloodiest single day in the war), the Wilderness (due to many troops being burned alive), and Cold Harbor (for being the single bloodiest hour in the war) rank up with Gettysburg for various reasons.

I was going to mention Antietem myself if no one else had mentioned it. I do have to ask about Petersburg, tho. That ws one hell of a crater, and then the Union soldiers who charged into it were massecred as well.

[Jalinth]

On top of that, nobody outside the United States seemed to pay attention when General Buford rewrote the book on cavalry tactics. Cavalry still had its uses in WWI, due to lack of motorization, but those uses did not include charging the enemy.

Of course no one took him seriously. After all, what could a damn rebellious ex-colonial hack from a mickey mouse military teach the European powers?

The appropriate response is one the lines of you can take a horse to water, but can't force him to drink.

[Elfdart]

My grandfather was in the 1st Marines and fought on Pelelieu. Proportionally, that had to be one of the worst battles in the Pacific and all for one measley airfield. The Marines lost about the same number of men in that one battle as all coalition forces lost in the entire Iraq war in three years. The one silver lining is that since my grandfather was one of sixteen men from his company who wasn't dead or seriously wounded, he got to come home and spent the rest of the war at the Island teaching new recruits.

[Big Phil]

There are few battles in war that compare to the brutality and viciousness of the US-Japanese battles in the Pacific. The US and Japanese soldiers absolutely hated eacher other - the US hated the Japanese for their willingness to fight to the death (and because they were indoctrinated to think of them as sub-human), and the Japanese hated the US soldiers and marines because they were taught to (and because they were taught to think of them as sub-human).

The Eastern Front in WWII had similar levels of barbarity and pointless killing; the only thing that made the Pacific War less brutal than the Eastern Front was that there were very few civilians involved (see the Japanese conquest of China for examples of the type of viciousness you might have seen elsewhere had large numbers of civilians been present). Even on the Eastern front, though, surrendering soldiers were usually captured rather than killed (SS units being the obvious exceptions).

[Sea Skimmer]

Serving under an incompetent butcher like Haig just made it worse.

Okay, explain what else he was supposed to do? In case you forgot, the Somme attack had to be launched because the French army was being bled white at Verdun and desperately needed something to take off the pressure. It does no good to preserve the British Army if the French collapse.

[Civil War Man]

I was going to mention Antietem myself if no one else had mentioned it. I do have to ask about Petersburg, tho. That ws one hell of a crater, and then the Union soldiers who charged into it were massecred as well.

Unfortunately, yeah. For the short time the Battle of the Crater lasted, it sucked to be a Union soldier. Especially if you were one of the black soldiers.

It was Burnside's greatest weakness. He could come up with awesome plans (like tunneling under Confederate lines and blowing them up), but when the plan gets screwed up somehow (in this case, Meade made him change the formation at the last minute, after the troops had spent months training at their specific tasks), the entire thing goes to Hell.

[Ace Pace]

Stalingrad was one if the, if not the worst battle to be in as an Axis or Allied Solider. The terrible conditions, poor nutrition on both sides. Lack of ammuntion, super-close quarters fighting. (Several thousand people were stabb/beaten to death as they were sleeping. Their awake comrades have just been killed a moment ago. Hundreds died in the same buildings as the battles raged forth street to street and back agian. On any given day possesion of most of the city could change hands. It was the longest city battle on record for men to fight and die that close to each other.

What about being a civilian in the Leningrad siege?

Oh wait, they had food.

125 grams of bread per day for a civillian, 250 grams per day for a soldier. While doing 12 hour a day shifts at the factory. Without heating, running water, electricity or sanitation. In -50 degree cold.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Still better then Stalingrad.

[Patrick Degan]

For a Confederate in the Civil War, the worst battle had to be Franklin —where Hood got five of his generals and a third of his army slaughtered ordering an utterly pointless attack for ground the Union never intended to hold, and all so as to discipline his troops. Talk about an incompetent butcher.

[Raptor 597]

Kursk, especially for a future tanker as myself! 19Kilo, Die Before Dismount!

[Raptor 597]

For a Confederate in the Civil War, the worst battle had to be Franklin —where Hood got five of his generals and a third of his army slaughtered ordering an utterly pointless attack for ground the Union never intended to hold, and all so as to discipline his troops. Talk about an incompetent butcher.

Well they didn't call him General John Bell "Crazy" Hood for nothing. Nevermind the Battles of Atlanta.

[Glocksman]

Serving under an incompetent butcher like Haig just made it worse.

Okay, explain what else he was supposed to do? In case you forgot, the Somme attack had to be launched because the French army was being bled white at Verdun and desperately needed something to take off the pressure. It does no good to preserve the British Army if the French collapse.

Opening the attack with your troops marching across no-man's-land in fucking parade formation while weighed down with 90+ pounds of equipment instead of a skirmish line (though to be fair, I think it was actually one of his subordinates who ordered this idiocy) isn't exactly what Rommel would have done.
Add that to his refusal to face up to the fact that technology was changing the face of warfare and his seemingly utter disregard for the lives of the troops under his command and you have a commander that I wouldn't want to serve under in peacetime, much less war.

These two quotes I found illustrate his mindset and inability to adapt quickly.

The way to capture machine guns is by grit and determination

The machine gun is a much over rated weapon.

Those quotes are from 1915.


Haig was far from alone in being unable to adapt to how war changed with the advent of the machine gun, aircraft, long range artillery, and other new weapons that didn't exist in the golden age of cavalry.
Maybe I'm too harsh on him, but isn't coming up with new tactics and ideas a Commander's job when the old ones fail miserably and cost too much in both materiel and human life?