Now this tells you how special this video is. For it was a sign of estranged destiny that such things would happen. Guess this means we require more videos on this from you (and some more Combat Team and maybe a edited scenario that makes said game feel quite WW1 ish or forces a WW1 situation but in WW2)
Looks like D Company went on a "Death Ride to Schweben redoubt", eh? The War Room is one of my favorite series on RU-vid. A severely underrated production.
Great video, I love these WW1 analyses. I've always felt people overlook how successful the Somme was - it fully modernized the British army (and combined Infantry tactics in general), and beat the Germans to a near pulp, so much so that they pretty much lost all initiative on the Western Front and didn't launch another offensive until 1918's act of desperation. These videos also make me wish someone would have a stab at a decent WW1 tactical sim. The battles were much more intricate and complex than the layman generally realizes.
another problem with ww1 from a game/sim perspective is that many that know more than the laymen about the tactics still see it as basically ww2 but with less toys
@@matthiuskoenig3378 That's a good point actually, and I've never really thought of it that way. I get why no one wants to make such a game, and suspect the market for it would be tiny, but we can all dream!
Sure, maybe 60s historians went intoo hard on the futility of the Somme, but this reads like cope. The Somme's original goals were not met at all. The Western Allies did not gain any initiative. Huge casualties were spent for very little gain. The German army managed to spare massive reserves to basically single-handedly stop the Brusilov offensive while all this was happening. And, let's be clear, the Germans and Austrians were faced with an entirely new front (Romania) in the middle of these dual offensives--and not only did they stave off Romania, but basically conquered it wholesale by the end of the year.
Glad you spoke about counter battery, aka the "deep fight." Most people who analyze battles don't focus on it and are hyper focused on the close fight.
Great video! I was reading 'A Storm of Iron' the memoir of a German soldier in WW1. He touched on many of the same principles when discussing the final 1918 offensive. He emphasized the need to destroy not only the trenches but also counter battery artillery. Really impressive that they were able to detect and destroy artillery batteries miles from the front without the modern technology we use today.
So I come to your video a year after you made it. It is really well put together and articulated quite well. I've noticed you've done a few other videos about The Great War, but nothing recently. I for one would love to see more on this subject...great stuff. 👍
Thanks very much! The WW1 videos were part of a quick run-through of the development of modern warfare, for now with the War Room I'm hopping about history a bit, but for sure WW1 will pop up again!
A great case for understanding the need for de-centralisation of tactical decision-making and cultivating autonomy in small units. It is a great study for those willing to study.
Do records of German war diaries on the same battles still exist? I recently rewatched The Great War, and while it's a good work and should be watched, it is terribly short on detail, especially from the side of the central powers.
@@mcsmash4905 Early war, Eastern Front, Tannenburg, Bellau Wood, possibly even the theatres outside Europe...there's lots of potential scenarios outside of Western Front trench warfare scenarios. Even within the context of trench warfare, the game could explore the very significant differences between the different stages of the war. Early trench warfare (when everyone was still figuring things out), then the massive gains made during the Spring Offensive, then finally modern-ish mechanized warfare with British and French tanks. Lots of room for variety.
Hapless! I am an avid follower of your CM AARs and recently stumbled upon your war room series. I was wondering whether you were a military historian by training and (former) military because I find your analysis and research, which must be painstaking, very, very impressive! I loved the Boer War episodes (quite impressed also by De La Reys fast learning in battle) and am currently catching up to the ww1 episodes. Keep up the great work!
Do you mind providing a link for the map used at 4:43? Im specifically looking for Ovillers in that same style, with marked out MGs, and maybe that map encompasses it.
I actually have no idea exactly where I got it from- I think I must have stumbled on it during a google image trawl and saved it before I lost it. This might be a good bet though: maps.nls.uk/view/101464801 Not quite what you're after I think, but might be a map from that site with the right details.
This is going to sound like a dumb question to the more well researched here, but what are the blue-green feedbag looking pouches hanging from the shoulders of the further ahead troops around minute 27:00? Are those just bags filled with grenades? If they are, I have to imagine that they are incredibly heavy and cumbersome. I would also have to imagine that concentrating the supply of grenades around a relatively limited number of people (even if every man carried at least one) would leave it fairly vulnerable. Any and all information, context, and commentary is welcomed.
Yep. Those are grenade buckets. To begin with at least, grenadiers (or bombers for the Brits) were on the specialist side so, not everyone carried grenades. As to the mechanics, pretty much everything was tried but I suspect that in bombing teams there were bombers to actually throw the greandes and bomb bucket carriers to lug them around.
So to help with this. Yup those are Bombers (essentially grenadiers) who were specially trained to grenade trench lines and break them up for the assault teams - other objectives would be grenading MG, Mortar, bunker and dugouts. Note these lads just weren’t “anyone” but were usually quite experienced and strong lads who had previous backgrounds in throwing sports or competitions (I.e. they may have been the bowlers at cricket, or stone throwers, etc) As for why centre around them. It mainly fell on the structure of the British platoon at the time - separate sections to achieve different activities. I.e. the machine gun section suppressed the enemy trench as the men advanced on it; the bombers tossed in the grenades to separate the defenders and cause confusion and casualties; the assault team went in with the rifle and bayonet to take the trench and begin to sweep the line; the bombers and machine guns would follow with the machine guns creating a overwatch and fallback position and the bombers going between positions blowing dugouts and mgs. As such keeping each man concentrated on his sections job meant you didn’t have each section getting to split up over several trench sections or having to split up sections to do multiple jobs. Essentially it was a help for officers and NCOs to better and easily coordinate men under their command who didn’t have the same military structure and experience as the regulars. - and you can guess as the war went on and the green turned to regulars and veterans more advanced unit tactics began being initiated as the men following them now had the knowledge and experience to understand said instructions.
So basically, it became obvious at the Somme that infantry needs some sort of mobile firepower like self-propelled artillery, tanks and ground attack aircraft in order to suppress random mg nests. It's really strange that germans were not encouraged by Mk 1 to try their own caterpillar platform. What's even more interesting that germans had some successes in 1918 offensives in Picardy and at Aisne river despite the lack of armored vehicles. I've read that it was due to inappropriate defensive tactics of Gough and Duchenes armies. I guess that germans while good at offensive tactics were far superior elastic defensive specialists than allies in 1918.
Somewhat. Tanks are an immature technology at this stage so to some extent the Entente could afford to devote resources to them while the Germans couldn't. Even then, they were still mechanically unreliable and too few in number to be a game changer. That- and what happened in 1918- is another video though ;) Maybe two.
