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 Ketara wrote:

squidhills wrote:
Seb, you're late. Ketara already kicked my butt on this.

Christ, that's not the impression I give off is it? I really need to work on my metaphorical bedside manner if so.

No, no, you're cool. I meant in a positive, informative way.

Certainly been interesting following this thread. I think it is clear that the popular perception of WWI is massively skewed from the actual events of the war.

As another example of adaption of tactics during WWI- the British sniper program. They started the war with no dedicated snipers, and ended it with probably the best sniper doctrine and training of any involved power. Plus an excellent sniper rifle in the Pattern 1914, although despite the name that arrived late in the war in 1917. There was an absolute mess of stopgap conversions to the SMLE using all manner of civilian scopes prior to that. The British Army basically bought up every civilian scope available in the British isles as soon as it became apparent they needed snipers.

 Haighus wrote:
Certainly been interesting following this thread. I think it is clear that the popular perception of WWI is massively skewed from the actual events of the war.

As another example of adaption of tactics during WWI- the British sniper program. They started the war with no dedicated snipers, and ended it with probably the best sniper doctrine and training of any involved power. Plus an excellent sniper rifle in the Pattern 1914, although despite the name that arrived late in the war in 1917. There was an absolute mess of stopgap conversions to the SMLE using all manner of civilian scopes prior to that. The British Army basically bought up every civilian scope available in the British isles as soon as it became apparent they needed snipers.

It wasn't just with regards to sniping but for prismatic binoculars, rangefinders, and more. The British optical industry prior to 1914 was in a somewhat poor state of things; much of what was turned out in the way of finished products was reliant upon raw/manufactured materials imported from Germany (much like the chemicals/dyestuffs trade). The optical munitions trade was quite distinct from that of commercial optical instruments; requiring specialist designers and skilled workmen few in number outside of a small number of firms in London (barring naval specialists Barr and Stroud in Scotland).

When war broke out in 1914, a large number of instruments already ordered by the War Office pre-war had yet to be delivered, let alone all the men Kitchener immediately set about raising. Excluding gun sights and sight telescopes, 7% of the army required binoculars, and 1 rangefinder was required for every hundred men. That means that even excluding the existing shortfall, the newly raised armies therefore required another 140,000 pairs of binoculars and 10,000 range finders. And finding those instruments was an absolute bloody procurement nightmare.

I'm pulling very heavily from the work of Stephen Sambrook here, and his magnum opus 'The Optical Munitions Industry in Great Britain 1888-1923'. He's an absolutely sterling chap and his book has conveniently been put into a more affordable paperback format lately. Go buy it if you want to know what happened next!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Optical-Munitions-Industry-1888-1923-Business/dp/1848933126

And yes, I am shamelessly plugging the man. He's lent me a hand on some periscope details in the past and his work really should be read more widely; so it's the least I can do.

squidhills wrote:
Seb, you're late. Ketara already kicked my butt on this.

Sorry. I live in basically the opposite timezone to everyone so I'm always about 12 hours late. I like to think I'm giving a somewhat different POV or phrasing to what's been said before, but I admit it probably feels a lot like turning up after the battle to stab the wounded

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Long story short, yeah, you're right - the US didn't have a lot to offer Europe's militaries, and that would be the case in early WW2 as well.

I agree with you in the sense that we didn't have a lot to offer in terms of fresh, new military thought/theory.

What we did have to offer, particularly when the US arrived in Europe in 1917, was fresh bodies. It wasn't until Fismes/Fismette that Pershing got what he wanted: American troops fighting under command of American generals. I actually wrote a paper on Fismes and Fismette, focusing on some of the troops from the 112th Infantry regiment (part of the 28th division), and I honestly think that it was a battle which would have far reaching consequences in terms of doctrine and training.

I hope I didn't sound too critical of the USA, because yeah, the USA obviously had the manpower and the industrial capacity.

What I meant was the hard learning curve the USA always went through at the beginning of its involvement in both World Wars.

In WW2, you obviously had Kasserine Pass and the Philippines debacle

and in WW1, the harsh realities of trench warfare.

But to give the USA credit, they always learned from the blunders and mistakes.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

What I meant was the hard learning curve the USA always went through at the beginning of its involvement in both World Wars.

Good friend of mine wrote a lengthy paper analyzing US casualties in our 20th century wars. . . You're right. There are systemic "problems" that the US military hasn't learned. To be somewhat fair though, each successive war has been different enough from the previous one, that the Vets who were still in and formed the hardened core of the army and were in charge of training, weren't well prepared for the realities of the newer conflict. He relied a little too much on Annales School (IMHO) as I personally think that numbers only tell one part of the story.

apologies for the slight necro but came across the following little thread and thought it worth sharing :

https://twitter.com/PaulMMCooper/status/989100350044082176

One of the most chilling abandoned places in the world is France's Red Zone, or "Zone Rouge".

Over 100 years ago, the First World War so devastated the landscape here that people are still forbidden to enter, & the zone has become a ghostly & overgrown place.

bits of it have now been reclaimed but :

Although today the Zone Rouge has been largely repopulated, there are still no-go areas.

On two pieces of land close to Ypres and Woëvre, a study by Bausinger et al (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17555801 ) found that 99% of plants still die, & arsenic can constitute up to 17% of the soil.

Today, French government démineurs still recover about 900 tons of ordnance every year, & in Belgium the amount is around 200 tons.

According to the Sécurité Civile, at the current rate no fewer than 700 years will need to pass before the area is completely clean.

"Here stood the Church"

It looks like a prehistoric burial mound or barrow.

Half of Berlin was closed for a WW2 a couple of days ago.