Any military history buffs here?

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I watch the Military History channel, and have been absolutely enthralled by the repeat of the Ken Burns documentary about the American Civil War - which was a fascinating conflict, in loads of respects: it was the birthplace of trench warfare, for a start, and was also one of the first major conflicts to feature breech-loading rifles and Gatling guns. It also had so many other facets to it other than "it was to stop slavery" - if you asked your average Confederate soldier why he was fighting, he'd say he was fighting because the Yankees had invaded his home...

Indeed, the History channel did play a part in my WWII burnout, but so did the deluge of movies and games following the success of Saving Private Ryan, it just got old for after a while. I find Vietnam to be a more interesting conflict in many ways because of the evolving technology employed, and the lack of a clear cut objective. WWII can be thought of as the culmination of industrial age warfare, where as Vietnam was bridging the gap between industrial age and information age, and the disparity of forces was so great that traditional models of warfare didn't apply. Before then, who'd have thought that a military that killed it's adversary at a rate of around 20 to 1 would be the losing side in a war, it totally upended the apple cart and sent everyone back to the drawing board.

Incidentally, I heard a female comic recently who declared that the History channel was such a success because they had discovered that given a choice between sex and Hitler, that most men prefer Hitler...

Sadly if western observers had paid a little more attention to the conflict, WW1 would have been a much less complicated and bloodyaffair.. or at least more tactical in nature.

Not as familiar with dubya dubya 1 as two, but I did read the Guns of August (without Kennedy's recommendation, thank you very much...

If the French had won the Franco-Prussian war, or hadn't entered into all those secret treaties, it would have at least toned down the War to End All Wars...

Its mostly about learning the futility of advancing in the face of massed rifle and machinegun fire against fixed positions etc.

WWI is fascinating. The Germans were winning hands down with their technology and tactics. The Yanks overwhelmed them mostly with numbers. Our side was a bit embarrassing. We kept using the same wrong tactics over and over. By the way, tanks played almost no part whatsoever. They were too slow, and under-armoured, and thus easy targets as they chugged across the battlefield.

There are a lot of myths and half-truths about the prosecution of WW1. If anything, UK forces showed a marked evolution in tactics. US commanders were so very tight-assed about who led their troops that they incurred vast and needless losses by their refusal to accede to Dominion command. Tanks were perfectly effective, but were misunderstood by the other arms. Lacking infantry support, they were often left stranded too far ahead, or unable to advance at speed whilst dragging their infantry. The faster the tank, the worse the problem. It wasn't until mechanised infantry that tanks became truly effective.

But the Confederates attacked Ft Sumpter first...

I've done a lot of research into the "Polar Bears", American soldiers during WWI (and even after the Armistice) who fought the Bolsheviks in North Russia. Many of them were from Michigan and Wisconsin. It's a little known chapter of the "Great War".

Z

It makes military sense to strike first and strike hard, especially against a larger foe.

I've met Southern Yanks who refer to the Civil War as "The War of Northern Aggression."
Yes, they still discuss it that way, and say things like Lincoln don't deserve any statues.

Im gonna save this thread.... NECRO!! !! !

One interesting bit regarding the Yank Civil War is that was when the sniper rifle was invented, which in turn created the first sniper training. I've just read a cracking book about the battles for Stalingrad, and that involved a lot of sniper fighting.

Yeah ive wached lots of documents about that... the one guy who like killed some 60 german troops in one fight just by sniping...

I've always found it darkly amusing that sniping is one of the few military areas in which the former Soviet Union really excelled. They were on the receiving end of a lot of it during the winter war, and by WWII had managed to put together a very effective sniper corps, much to the surprise of the Germans. I think that sniping appealed to the inherent "cheapness" of the Russians, one guy with a bolt action rifle doing damage far out of proportion to the cost of arming and training him must have looked pretty good to people who couldn't even afford to arm all of their troops.

Precisely dear boy. The Russians had to fight with what they had, which wasn't much. The sniper corp was an answer to the problem of the Germans being far better trained and equipped. The book I read said that the Russians purposely shot certain soldiers just to inflict psychological injury. They would wait for a water runner to come back with fresh water. They would shoot him, then shoot anyone who tried to get to him, and then shoot the water pack just so the thirsty Germans would be demoralized.