Truly, was there a more hellish point in human history?
>>286546
>Truly, was there a more hellish point in human history?
World War 2
>>286546
Three kingdoms period of post-Han China.
WW1 was bad, but it didn't kill 70% of Europe.
>>286552
That's a bingo.
>>286552
>fast motorized assaults over endless diseased rat-filled trench warfare
I'd take fighting in WW2 over WW1 any day.
>>286564
>mass genocide of civilians
>>286564
You had a lot of hellish infantry fighting in WW2 as well.
Everyone remembers the armored warfare, but the overwhelming majority of every army except the U.S.'s was old fashioned infantry, who walked to and from the battlefield, and blazed away with rifles.
>>286552
Soldiers living conditions were way worse in WW1 than WW2 (especially for the WW2 US soldiers who lived like queens)
The only exception is maybe Stalingrad
>>286608
What don't you understand in "soldiers..." (so not civilians) "...living conditions" (so not combat)?
>>286546
Europe during the Black Plague.
>>286591
Definitely. But overall ww2 seems to be more horrific than the first. Dare i pull a meme and claim ww1 wasnt a world war? Uh oh...
Ummayyd Caliphate
All I'm saying is I sure as fuck wouldn't want to be at Verdun...
That one siege in china where they ate civilians.
>>286777
Weren't they hardcore Arab supremacists who discouraged conversion to Islam unless someone could prove their membership in an Arab tribe? Islam would have remained a small Arabic cult and considered nothing more than a heresy by the west, and when it collapsed the Levantine, North African and Arab Christians probably would have set up their own states again or been reconquered by the ERE.
>>286932
There were lots of them, but yes they did discourage it, mostly because that way they could force you to pay a head tax, but they also let you actively practice your religion
>>286546
2:45 every Friday afternoon.
Day just seems like it's never going to end.
>>286546
The Black Plague
The worst sounding thing from WWI to me sounds like drowning in the mud. Not only do you have the pain of drowning and having your lungs filled, but you have to swallow mud during it. You are disgusted, in pain and afraid all at once.
Fuck that.
Unit 731 is the most hellish point in human history.
>>287028
Happened at Agincourt as well. I think it's just part and parcel about fighting in northern France.
WWI was the most pointless, ineptly fought and wretched conflict in human history
I'll take instant death on the Western front in WW2 over this horseshit any day
WWI is the single greatest example of what an absolute debacle war becomes when you have complete imbeciles commanding on both sides
>>287058
They weren't necessarily imbeciles. They were stuck in their old ways of glory fighting and being political generals, while still forgetting and refusing to acknowledge the fact that technology had outpaced the ideas and tactics of warfare.
More like prideful fuck twats.
>>287066
how did we go from wellington and Napoleon to these fucking clowns though?
>>287072
Pretty much what I just said. Napoleon had muskets and howitzers, the new armies had machine guns and fucking unthinkable (for the time) sized artillery. A book I have actually shows an engraving of what people though WWI would be fought as, and its people running across fields and on horses majestically.
Obviously that isn't how it played out, but pretty much each offensive was planned as a giant piece de resistance of combat that would end the war in one stroke.
>>287088
you can't tell me Napoleon would have failed to innovate the way these buffoons did though. There is no excuse for the complete inability to adapt new tactics
>>286554
The Three Kingdoms period killed 70% of Europe?
>>287100
I never said they had an excuse. They just refused to see combat in any other way and it was just the times.
I hardly think it's fair to call them buffoons, unless you want to use that to also mean stubborn.
And they did innovate a bit in the war anyway, but by the time they did they were already locked in the trenches. Gas, digging tunnels, the explosion at Hill 60, airplane bombings. All of that was new tactics.
I can and would tell you Napoleon might indeed have been the same way. He fought that style, and they still thought in that style.
>>287100
But they did adapt new techniques, anon. Pounding away with artillery while hiding in a hole was rather new (to a degree anyway). Consider also, reconnaissance planes with marker lights as well.
That being said, Hotzendorf is the dumbest general in the history of warfare.
>>287110
Reading comprehension, anon.
He was comparing WWI to the three kingdoms period.
He was saying WWI didn't do to Europe what that period did to China, IE kill 70% of the population (though I have no idea how true that stat is).
>>287100
Thats not the point. He would have conducted war as he knew it and as such would have been mowed down by the new machine guns. Industrialized killing going on.
>>287058
You posted this same shit in the last thread and got BTFO. Just stop.
>>286579
I'd still take being an infantryman in WWII over being one in WWI, unless I was in Stalingrad.
There were points in WWII where it got as miserable as WWI, but in broad strokes I'd say I'd much rather relatively mobile warfare to trench warfare.
>>287119
Dark ages.
>>287119
Wikipedia at least seems to bear that out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms
>A nationwide census taken in AD 280, following the reunification of the Three Kingdoms under the Jin shows a total of 2,459,840 households and 16,163,863 individuals which was only a fraction of the 10,677,960 households, and 56,486,856 individuals reported during the Han era.
>>286546
Almost hilarious how fans of WWI portray it as the worst war ever. There's nothing at all to distinguish it from other high intensity conflicts, the combat for soldiers wasn't any worse than what was faced by the men in WWII. And WWII was obviously worse for massive civilian deaths, widespread massacres, and starvation on a scale absolutely dwarfing WWI.
This view of this war is so entrenched in completely false myths I'm not sure people will ever know the real history.
>>287121
>last thread
I'm not a regular here buddy, calm your autism
>>287144
>the combat for soldiers wasn't any worse than what was faced by the men in WWII
>>287042
This.
>>287121
How did the guy get btfo? Cause I'm pretty sure the whole "ancient strategies and new technologies" is a meme but I don't have enough info to confirm it.
>>287150
Men got shot, men got blown up, same as in every war. But oh no god forbid anything but the rain and mud!!!11
>>287144
I think the reason people go on and on about WWI is that is just completely changed how war was fought. Instead of the honor and glory of fighting for king and country, you're sitting in a ditch drinking your piss for weeks on end. It's more of the shock of it all that makes it so awful. Consider battles fought just 50 years before with WWI's artillery strikes from 5 miles out. Or the massive amounts of casualties in so short a time (the Somme). It was just so different that no one knew what to do.
It's not the worst, but it did usher in the industrialization of killing and it destroyed the old world.
>mfw reading about british naval blunders circa WWI and WW2
>>286546
What was the reason that the western front slowed to a halt while the western front kept it's momentum?
>>287166
Holy fuck, you must do nothing but play war video games all day if you honestly think rain and mud can effect combat. Especially when you dig down into the dirt which is already saturated with mud, making everything just a fucking swamp.
I didn't say it wasn't similar, but trench life is honestly one of the worst sounding things on earth, and if you think that some rain wouldn't bother you, then you're a fucking imbecile.
Did you not read the above message I posted where people fucking drown in the mud? There was that much fucking mud
>>287173
Russia had shit military and internal problems.
>>287150
WWI
>allied dead
>5,525,000
>central dead
4,386,000
WWII
>allied dead
>Over 16,000,000
>axis dead
>Over 8,000,000
Not counting civilian deaths in either conflict.
>>287173
I assume you mean the East. And it's because Russia was just no god damn match for the Germans. They made one big offensive which was KINDA a success, but they literally got so wrecked they had a civil war. Battle of Tannenberg man
>>287173
In the western front both sides just dung in really deep and they had this mind set that they aren't allowed to lose any ground.
In the Eastern front the Germans were able to listen to what the Russians were doing and also had their war plans during the beginning of it. Also the Russians didn't mind allowing the enemy to take over some land because they knew their winter would kill the invaders off.
>>287188
That proves literally nothing. At all you fuckwit. That proves that WWII was longer, there was even more technology, and there were more fronts, which there were. But i'm talking about day to day life in a trench.
>>287173
I assume you mean Eastern front keeping its momentum.
And yes, a relatively simple one. What caused the deadlock in the Western Front wasn't the trenches exactly, the trenches were a symptom of a deeper underlying problem.
Armies had gotten so big, and fields of fire had gotten so wide, that your manpower or your weapons were no longer the limiting factor as to how much lethality you could bring to bear, the underlying geography was. You had a more or less solid line running from the sea to the Swiss border, and no way to get at the enemy except head on.
Out east, there was more room to work with, and that meant more classic maneuvering principles could still apply, you could hope, by proper application of your troops, to get at a weak point. Out west, there were no weak points until you bulled your way through several miles of solid defenses.
I think WWI gets its rep for some of the offensives that lead to such a high number of dead in such a short time.
Some battles in the Sino-Japanese war and Eastern Front WWII still take the cake on death-tolls over even the Somme, though.
I'd take western front WWII over western front WWI, and eastern front WWI over eastern front WWII.
>>287197
You really are stupid. Even basic math tells you people on both sides were dying in larger numbers each year. Of course technology was better, that doesn't change the fucking fact that you had a higher chance of being killed, making it a worse time to be fighting.
>>287177
>but trench life is honestly one of the worst sounding things on earth
In WWII vastly more soldiers froze to death, starved to death, and died in general. On Normandy and Anzio scenes very similar to what happened in WWI were repeated. Bitter house to house fighting like in Stalingrad was almost completely absent from WWI, in the Pacific Japanese soldiers burned and starved to death on a regular basis, disease was universal on both sides.
>>287207
No, it really fucking doesn't. There was a higher chance you would die sure, given the technology and extra 2 years they had to fight, but if you honestly think that the stress level of a WWII soldier was higher than a WWI soldier, you should probably learn something about the human brain.
I would recommend reading "Eye Deep in Hell"
>>287211
You're right, but I would say over all, conditions in WWI were still worse.
As an American.. I'd pick any other war in the history of wars that America has fought, over ww1. The more and more I learn about WW1, the more and more I am glad I don't live at that point in history. Millions of men dying in the nastiest trenches imaginable all become some guy got shot in the balkans. Fuck that.
>>287216
>all because of one guy who got shot
Well meme'd
>>287216
>yfw no one gave a shit about Franz Ferdinand and the Austrians and Germans just used it as a paper thin excuse to try and beat up Serbia
Is there anyone dumber than Austria in 1914? It was just one fuck up after another. I'm still baffled that they were able to continue fighting for an entire 4 years of losing damn near every single battle.
>>287231
>A-H couldn't even beat the Italians
>>287188
Every 45 seconds a German died in the Trenches.
It was even less than that for the French.
>>287242
And in WW2 a German died every 23.5 seconds.
>>287139
Holy fucking shit.
>>287283
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
Pre-modern Chinese internal conflicts hold 4 of the top 10.
Thirty Years War.
>>286759
>Dare i pull a meme and claim ww1 wasnt a world war?
How wasn't it. It changed up the international landscape. Germany lost all its oversea holdings. It was also the first time total war had been declared between all of the world's major powers. It set the stage for everything else that happened in the 20th century.
>>287234
Anyone got that picture of all the failed Italian offenses in just one area in WW1?
>>287322
Not to mention pic related
>>287324
That's not really relevant to my post
>>287139
>40 million people dead
How did they even manage that with swords and spears? Jesus.
>>287324
>in just one area in WW1?
That's the only place they fought, of fucking course all of the offensives would fail there if they failed
>>287338
Most of it seems to have been caused by starvation: Marching armies smashed a lot of the agricultural infrastructure that was supporting the pre-war population, and then famine set in.
Don't forget too, that "Three kingdoms China" is usually considered to start at 184 and end at 280, so you have plenty of time to get a lot of butchery in. In fact, to me, that might be the most horrifying part of it, I can easily picture some conscript fighting over a meaningless battlefield in the mountains of western China, knowing that your father and grandfather fought and probably died over the same mountainsides.
>>287338
Holodomor mixed with scorched earth tactics mixed with generals giving free reign to their army to plunder the lands they marched through.
>>286564
Nah, that trench warfare must be super comfy. Tiny ground holes with dead bodies to snuggle with.
>WW2 confirmed as worst war
>>287367
H-hold me Hans-kun
>>287367
>corpse rats the size of dogs
N-no thanks, anything but that.
>>287028
>not falling into a deep hole made by artillery that's filled with disgusting water and dead bodies and being unable to climb out
who /teamWW1/ here?
>>287338
like everyone said, starvation
the chinese also had those chu ko nus which didn't hit that hard but the bolts were usually poisoned to compensate
i wouldn't be surprised if there was a large chunk of casualties in war caused by chu ko nu's on lightly armored infantry
>>287365
>scorched earth tactics
In my opinion, SET is probably the most morally depraved shit humans can do in war, because it's explicitly designed to destroy civilians.
>>287394
>forgetting all about the fart cloud of mustard gas floating at the bottom of it
>have fun with that death
>>287451
what about as a defensive tactic?
>>287211
I'd rather starve to death than rot in a trench, up to my ankles in blood, feces and grease until it's time to assault the opposing trench, and end up falling into a shell hole and drown in a shit-puddle that chlorine gas settled in.
>>287453
Of course, people do what they can to win in a war.
But as a matter of tactic, scorched earth is probably up there with genocide as morally disturbing.
>>286546
>Truly, was there a more hellish point in human history?
Maybe survivor stories of hiroshima and nagasaki. The luckiest people were the ones who were instantly atomized.
>>287494
>instantly atomized
Were people actually "atomized" at all? If I remember correctly, they detonated the bombs pretty far over ground to maximize the yield, which would make it far more likely that people were just killed by the initial shockwave.
>>287211
Read some of accounts of the battle of Paschendale, the mud was so bad when the british troops finally decided to move they simply couldn't help many of the stuck soldiers and had to leave them to slowly sink in the mud while fully conscious without a thing they could do for them. The same unit later passed by the same area and their comrades were still alive, some laughing maniacally having completely lost it, others were plainily begging them to shoot them.
As far as soldiers conditions/war conditions, no. For the civilians it was pretty tame compared to things like WW2 and other ones people have mentioned
>>287066
I find this to be an unfair characterization of the way WW1 was fought. The commanders were constantly learning, experimenting, devising new ways to break the stalemate that fortified earthworks manned with barbed-wire, machine guns and smokeless powder presented at the time. The tools that were eventually created to overcome those obstacles were a result of having to face them in the first place. How could they have had tanks when automobiles were still a fairly newfangled contraption that often less-reliable than a horse, especially in muddy and uneven terrain. Airplanes were still new as well. They hadn't begun to be made sturdy enough to carry the amount of munitions needed to hit anything with their abysmal accuracy.
The solutions were simply non existent for the commanders until other parties out of their control like engineers, scientists, supply administrators and politicians had all completed a necessary step on their end.
It's unfair to view the First world war knowing already the solutions to the problem of trench-warfare because you've heard about WW2 and already seen them put in action. It's important to mind the fog of ignorance they were operating in. That they didn't have the historical example because the situation of the western front was completely unprecedented.
>>286557
>>286552
Nope, WWII was mostly restricted to conventional warfare without chemical weapons unlike WWI, and let's not forget that armastic day was the same year that the Spanish Flu of 1918 decided to wreck everybody's shit.
I'm looking at it from a "how hellish would it be to live in this time period" point of view because that's what op specified. Death by starvation or disease in some god forsaken trench is probably worse than a quick death by bomb, tank, or machine gun. Russia did some pretty fucked up "liberation" during WWII and there were atrocities on all fronts, but the warfare was still more convetional. There have probably been just as hellish or worse times in human history, but they are either forgotten or poorly documented.
Currently reading a book on the eastern front. It's a biography of an SS-soldier.
He describes lying in his dug out hole with his MG-42 during winter. He can't raise his head above the hole because there's a soviet sniper shooting at him all day. Only when night comes around can he move. He goes to relieve himself, goes to get what chow the brass sends his way and a refill of ammo. Some days the supplies never come, meaning he goes without food for days sometime.
So for over two weeks he just lays there in his hole. Every day is the same. The soviets fire their Katusja rockets and blast the entire area to bits and after that the infantry storms in which is when he shoots blindly into the fog and mist pulled up by the artillery. Eventually the soviets retreat and he goes back down again before the fog clears and the sniper can shoot him.
One day a grenade lands right on top of him and he loses his arm. He has to crawl in a trench littered with dead corpses all the way back to the command post so that he can get to a medic, all the while the sniper is trying to shoot at him.
I don't know. People who assume that WW1 is the worst war seem to forget about the eastern front...
>>287451
not really considering by then the civilians of the areas would have either evacuated or been killed already
scorched earth was designed to stop an advancing army in its tracks by destroying all the shelter, food and water available for them
>>288329
cunts fucked.
>>287451
scorched earth aint targeted at civilians desu
>>286546
>Truly, was there a more hellish point in human history?
most definitely
parts of WW2 for sure (Eastern Front, possibly something in the Pacific)
some of the chinese periods were slaughter on a massive scale
also 30YW
remember you did not spend most of your time in the trenches or getting shelled or doing actual fighting in WW1 (in most modern wars actually) - on average only a couple of days a month
>>287315
Worst thing to ever happen in Germany
>>287058
holy shit this thread is so full of the lions led by donkeys bullshit it hurts
>>288329
It wasn't a cake walk, but mr lost arm didn't cough his lung bits out and get cancer some time later if he survived, or flamethrowered to death by Frenchies, and he had an mg42 instead of the hacked together bits of metal that were WWI man portable weaponry
>>287451
lol, you've played CoH2 Soviet campaign, didn't you?
>>288309
>WWII was mostly restricted to conventional warfare
Bombing campaigns against civilian targets and cities is not conventional warfare.
>Khmer Rouge not mentioned
Those guys were batshit insane on so many levels
>>288526
True, I chose my words poorly. I wouldn't want to be a part of either conflict.
>>288309
Again, the 30 Years War was worse, having the same possibility of disease and starvation with the added risk of Swedish men forcing you to drink their piss until your stomach ruptured.
>>286564
Especially in Stalingrad, Warsaw 1944, Berlin, Omaha beach. Piece of cake.
>>286546
Mongol invasions.
>>286571
>civilian genocide
>part of war
Lel
Part of the misery of the Western Front of WWI was having to fight over a small piece of land for years on end, with hundreds of thousands of casualties either achieving very little territorial gains or none at all.
But this unfairly painted the Western Front of WWII as easygoing and calm in comparison. WWII was no less horrific, and even in places like Normandy - which is seen as a cleaner campaign - the casualty rate was pretty much the same as a comparable WWI battle. Then when you look at places like the Eastern Front, Pacific theater or initial Japanese campaigns in China, WWII seems to dwarf the WWI in terms of sheer casualties and intensity of combat.
>>288329
What you just described happened day in and day out in WW1
>>289964
Don't forget Okinawa, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Leningrad, Kursk, Moscow, whole Sino-Japanese theater, Burma, Bulge, etc.
>>290310
No it didn't, because in World War 1 you actually had trenches you could walk around in. You were with your friends - even if they died all around you.
In World War 1, the war was static. There were no exhausting retreats without replacements through ice cold steppes. There were no days without sleep because you just kept marching and retreating. In World War 1 you sat in your trench and by god it was horrible, but at least you had human warmth.
This guy just sat in a hole alone for 2 weeks with nothing but charging soviet troops to keep him company and the only time he could shit was at night.
WW1 was rough but it was by no means Eastern Front WW2 rough.
>hurr, WW1 was only static trench warfare
I want this meme to end
>>286777
U MA(aYY lmao)D tho?
>>286552
No, because that was worst for civilians, not soldiers. It doesn't count because civilians are not human.
>>287173
This post proves why this is the best board. The guy typo'd, saying western front twice instead of once and eastern front once, and instead of calling him out on it and making fun of him, the replies instead assume what is obvious and then answer the question.
If this were /pol/, oh my goodness. /his/ is the best board.
>>287451
>What was the reason that the western front slowed to a halt while the western front kept it's momentum?
wat
>>290330
Between major offensives, perhaps. But during offensives such as Verdun or the Somme, or in less densely packed fronts like the Dolomites or even in the Middle East, that kind of scene was common as well.
>>290330
>you actually had trenches you could walk around in.
Maybe 2nd and 3rd line trenches, but not 1st line ones. Especially during offensives with all the artillery fire.
>You were with your friends
Friendship in the trenches is a lie made up by both the military authorities and communists/socialists after the war.
>In World War 1, the war was static.
Not all the time/everywhere.
>There were no exhausting retreats without replacements through ice cold steppes.
What is the eastern front ? Also the Alps, etc.
>There were no days without sleep because you just kept marching and retreating.
See above, it wasn't 100% static warfare.
>human warmth.
Myth/lie again.
>This guy just sat in a hole alone for 2 weeks with nothing but charging soviet troops to keep him company and the only time he could shit was at night.
Yeah, same as the thousands of soldiers stuck in shell holes during WW1.
>>290604
>Friendship in the trenches is a lie made up by both the military authorities and communists/socialists after the war.
I would have responded to you, but this comment made me realize I'm just talking to an irrational /pol/tard.
The first world war was bad, but not as bad as the eastern front of world war 2. A place where you had famine, cannibalism, genocide... None of these things happened (on the Western front) in World war 1.
>>290426
Only proves that /his/ is a young board. Just wait and see.
>>290604
Meanwhile, in WW2 had no death squads, planned destruction of cities, carpet bombings, mass deportation, sieges that would last for 872 days, suicide battles, ethnic cleansings, guerilla troops, fighting in sewers, Rattenkrieg and Alexander Marinesco
>>287188
Das two additional years to ww1 and make one side fight a "total war"... Then ww1 would've caused alteast the same amount of soldier casualities in both sides.
>>290693
>Meanwhile, in WW2 had no death squads, planned destruction of cities, carpet bombings, mass deportation, sieges that would last for 872 days, suicide battles, ethnic cleansings, guerilla troops, fighting in sewers, Rattenkrieg and Alexander Marinesco
I think you mean either WW1 had no, or that WW2 had.
>>287028
Apparently, in an account of Passchendaele, one of the British troops fell in while running for his life across the duck runs. He overshot and landed in the mud in a dead spot were nobody could risk pulling him out, but the German gunners couldn't hit him either.
He fell in all the way up to his chin.
He stayed there for 3 days, screaming, before dying of exhaustion.
you guys are forgetting the use of chemical weapons in ww1
also the idiotic and obsolete tactics used. Entire battallions were told to charge against machine guns
>>290812
Fates like that are the worst part about war.
Reminds me of one of a german prisoner taken by the americans after the Battle of the Bulge. In Belgium somewhere I believe.
They are being shot at by germans and this prisoner is wounded so they leave him behind on the riverbank.
For the next two days they can hear his wheezing lungs inhale and exhale on the other side of the river and some moans. They try to shoot him to put him out of his misery and even throw grenades in there - but he just won't die. He lives there on the riverbank, suffering until he finally dies.
>>290817
And what about the firebombing in WW2? Nothing like that ever happened in ww1. Over the course of 4 nights, around 50% of Hamburg was totally destroyed by bombs and firestorms.
>>290836
I think we were talking about the conditions of the war for the soldiers. It's pretty obvious that ww2 was worse for the civilians
>>290847
In a total war, you cannot separate them.
If you receive letters from home that says your entire home town was eradicated in a firestorm and half of your family burned to death, then that will affect your wartime experience.
Even when you are on leave at home, you might get subjected to bombings. This didn't happen in the first world war.
>>290866
>This didn't happen in the first world war.
Yes it did. With Zeppelins.
WW1 was pretty safe for civilians if you were away from the war zone. Soldiers however suffered horribly.
WW2 was horrible for both.
>>290910
In which a total of around 5000 people were either killed or wounded...
Ok, I stand corrected, there were air raids during WW1 but they were peanuts compared to WW2.
>>290817
>also the idiotic and obsolete tactics used. Entire battallions were told to charge against machine guns
infantry tactics for the majority of ww1 were nothing like you imply, and in fact were virtually indistinguishable from infantry tactics employed in ww2
>>290910
>zeppelins
>firestorm
You need about 1000 tons of bombs and the right weather conditions to get all of the fires to merge into one big one that's impossible to put out.
Man fuck everything about the World Wars. I'm glad I wasn't born in that shit.
I guess I have the Second Cold War and WW3 to look forward too.
Just a reminder that on average, the British soldiers spent less than a week in frontline trenches a month during WW1.
"Constant barrages" and "always in a trench" and "always muddy" and "shit everywhere" and "marching into machineguns" and "lions led by donkeys" are pure, unadulterated bullshit.
>>290933
Not in the first months of the war - see Battle of the Frontiers
>>290949
yes, hence the "majority of ww1" qualifier
>>290947
>be soviet soldier
>arrive at stalingr
>>290947
Maybe in the FIRST line french, but 1 week? That's just blatantly false.
justinian plague and black death
>>290963
Funny thing, you are actually correct, it is false in a way.
The average time spent in frontline trenches was four days, not a week, per month.
>>290102
What you tards dont understand is that its not all about the fighting but about the living conditions
WW1 soldiers on the Western Front spent months in muddy trenches full of rats and human remains while being constantly shelled
Meanwhile, US soldiers during WW2 lived like queens in cozey and quit bases/ships/camps between each moment of action
>>290989
>WW1 soldiers on the Western Front spent months in muddy trenches full of rats and human remains while being constantly shelled
But they did not.
Constant shelling was not a thing.
Living in muddy trenches for "months" was not a thing.
Were the conditions in the trenches sometimes like you describe, with mud and death and shells? Of course, it was war.
Were they constantly like that? No. Like, the answer does not get any simpler than that. Entire sectors of the front were "quiet" or "cold" with literally no artillery barrages for days or weeks on end, ammunition shortages prevented constant shelling in even the most hotly contested sectors, troop rotation was a thing with the absolute majority of the troops' time being spent miles behind the frontline and so on and so forth.
>>290989
>what are unit rotations
>what is the eastern front
also, living in fucking mud wasn't something that world war 1 patented.
you go ask an exhausted wehrmacht soldier on the eastern front during the coldest of winter when the temperature reaches 20 degrees below zero (and more at night). The ground is rock hard, you've got no food and as soon as you pop your head up you get shot at by snipers. This is now your living quarter for the next three months.
I'd take the mud of the Western front any day of the week.
>>290988
You are fucking retarded, you can literally google the answer
"Soldiers in the First World War did not spend the whole of the time in the trenches. The British Army worked on a 16 day timetable. Each soldier usually spent eight days in the front line and four days in the reserve trench. Another four days were spent in a rest camp that was built a few miles away from the fighting."
>>291006
Of course you can google the answer.
And if you bothered to check out more sources, you would realize the "Spartacus Educational" conflates front line trenches with support trenches and gets the numbers mixed up - it was four days in the front line trenches, four in the support trenches, eight in reserve trenches and the rest in, heh, rest.
But don't take my word for it, you can see for yourself even online in a lecture by LSE prof Paul Mulvey http://www.academia.edu/2129873/Life_in_the_Trenches_Soldiers_on_the_Western_Front_1914-1918_lecture_ or in any reasonable WW1 book, like something by Dan Todman or Richard Holmes.
>>291006
So half the time you're not at the front?
And a quarter of the time you're in a rest camp?
WW1 sounds like a cakewalk compared to WW2...
Is it that thread in which Americans try to downplay the horror of WW1 because they did jackshit in it and try to make their beloved WW2 look worse than it actually was instead?
We have it like every week...
Were troops in WW2 rotated? I imagine not but better ask anyway.
>>291069
Of course they were. Troops in every modern conflict are rotated. Even the Eastern front had rotations back for things like re-training and recuperation. Rommel's initial offensive in North Africa, Somnenblume (sp?) was in part advocated because German intelligence picked up that the divisions that took part in Compass had been rotated out and newer, rawer ones were now occupying the positions.
>>291069
Yes, more or less, but then it wasn't a matter of days. It was rather a matter of weeks or months.
Robert Leckie describes that the 1st marines were on Guadalcanal for over 3 months before being rotated and sent to australia. but then they seem to have spent at least a couple of weeks there.
The Axis would give soldiers leave. The leave itself was often only 3 weeks or so, but the travelling distances were enormous. It could take 5 weeks just to reach the front.
>>291040
>So half the time you're not at the front?
Even less.
>However, most soldiers would only spend an average of four days at a time in a front line trench.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/10-photos-of-life-in-the-trenches
>Fortunately, however, and contrary tothe popular view of the war, most men did not spend much time in the trenches - only 10% of adivision's men would be in them at any one time. A typical month was perhaps 4 days in the front-line, 4 in support, 8 in reserve and the remainder in rest, i.e. at barracks some miles from the frontline.
http://www.academia.edu/2129873/Life_in_the_Trenches_Soldiers_on_the_Western_Front_1914-1918_lecture_
>In all, most battalions rarely spent more than five days a month in the line of fire.
>the Royal Warwickshire Regiment's 1/5th Territorial Battalion... the Front could be held by just 10% of his platoon’s troops. So the bulk of soldier’s time was divided between a range of specialist areas behind the front line...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3kgjxs
>>286546
The european colonization of the americas. Specially in the Caribbean
>>290604
>friendship in the trenches is a lie made up by communists
>>286552
WW2 on the Eastern Front for sure.
Also more hellish if you were a civilian since Russians and Germans did despicable shit to civilians.
Funny to think that 100 years before people would have picnics and watch battles taking place.
>>291329
>since Russians and Germans did despicable shit to civilians.
Are you a troll?
What about the firebomb genocide of Japan that killed millions of civilians from 1942 to 1945?
What about Dresden?
Everyone did despicable things to civilians during WW2
>>291368
Yes, but not on the scale of the Eastern Front.
Entire villages were razed to the ground just because few partisans shot a german trooper.
Entire populations were massacred, women raped, starved to death, etc.
>>291411
>Entire villages were razed to the ground just because few partisans shot a german trooper.
Meanwhile in Japan, entire cities were genocided through fire by the US airforce, and not even due to partisan actions but as a revenge for attacking a military base
>>291435
You might want to look up what "Genocide" means.
I'm not going to deny that the firebombings and other strategic bombing wasn't destructive or killed huge numbers of people, but it wasn't an intent to remove entire populations or even particularly punitive; it was a natural artifact of the low precision of weapons and the fact that a lot of wartime industries were located near population centers.
Which is also why the usual estimates of Japanese civilian casualties range from about 550,000-700,000, wheras the ones for the USSR range from about 7.5-11 million.
>>291368
>>291435
You're missing the point entirely.
Yeah, people bombed folk all over the place.
But on the eastern front the germans laid siege to Leningrad with the express purpose of starving the entire population out.
They employed Death squads to root out jews and exterminate them.
They are the only army in the war (and on the only front) where systematic extermination of the local populace was put into practice. They were making room for their future german colonists. Food was withheld from the local populace so that they would starve to death. This simply isn't compereable to Japan. In Japan, between 500,000 - 700,000 civilians died. On the eastern front, over 10 million were killed (and that's a LOW estimate).
They're not even close to compereable.
>>291475
>and other strategic bombing
>strategic
If you consider murdering civilians en masse with the hope they will revolt as a strategy that is
>>291435
>genocided
We told those japs to surrender or face Uncle Sam's wrath
Yhey didn't
So it was the only thing left to do
>>291518
Germany told those slavs to surrender or face the Reich's wrath
Yhey didn't
So it was the only thing left to do
>>291557
but they surrendered
they were under occupation
in fact, they welcomed them as liberators most of the time
>>291534
That was not the point of strategic bombing: It was to cripple wartime industries, especially transportation.
>>290098
>firebombing of Tokyo
>not part of the war
>>291435
you can't genocide a city fuckwit
>>287506
People's shadows were burnt into place, man. Probably not "atomized" but I wouldn't doubt they were immediately incinerated into ashes
That shadow shit though, how even?
>>291822
Not their actual shadows, carbon silhouettes
>>291822
>That shadow shit though, how even?
They were close enough to the explosion that they essentially vaporized, but carbon is a tough motherfucker to burn out, but it's still being blasted into concrete with the force of a thousand suns so it creates a human shaped stain of soot embedded into the concrete.
>>291822
Those directly under the blast were vaporized instantly.
>>286591
>WW2 US soldiers who lived like queens
You clearly know nothing about the war in the Pacific
>>291953
>They were close enough to the explosion that they essentially vaporized, but carbon is a tough motherfucker to burn out, but it's still being blasted into concrete with the force of a thousand suns so it creates a human shaped stain of soot embedded into the concrete.
Any still extant?
>>291961
American soldiers in any theater of war had it better than virtually every other soldier. They had the most food and were the best supplied.
>>288401
It's what gave them their scat fetish. Arguably, it's the best
>>291964
I'm having trouble finding any sources on that. A few color photos, but I don't think they're recent.
>>290330
>There were no days without sleep
Those days were the ones where you slept in your own shit because the never ending artillery bombardment won't allow you to move.
>>290426
holy shit you fucking faggot
go back to /tg/ you limpy shit
>>291518
>the only army in the war (and on the only front) where systematic extermination of the local populace was put into practice
incorrect
>the germans laid siege to Leningrad with the express purpose of starving the entire population out
retarded level incorrect
Leningrad was the base for the Baltic fleet, home to a large number of armament factories (11% of total Soviet industrial output), was right next to Finland (a Nazi ally), and a politically significant target.
I want the "evil Germans do stupid things cause they just evil" meme to end.
>>291822
>>291879
I've been trying to figure this out for ages and it still makes no sense to me. Surely the area NOT covered by their bodies would be the dark bit. They shielded the surface behind them from the light burn of the flash, right? So their "shadow" should be an unburned area, while the rest was scorched and made darker?
Right? Am I retarded or something?
>>293268
Because they're not shadows, they're carbon silhouettes. What you're seeing there? A faint patina of what's left of that person after they were blasted with an atomic fireball, and then slammed with the force of the air burst into whatever building was nearby.
>>292054
It would be an amazing thing to see, surprised there's not more iconic photography. A good photograph would be the iconic image of the atomic age.
>>292618
A lot more frequent on the eastern fron than in WW1.
>>287206
Valid
>>286546
my great grampy fought in ww1. got shot 3 times and lived through it, then when ww2 came around he was too old to fight. the medals he won were passed down to my grampy and then my dad.
>>292656
>incorrect
While you are correct, Ww2 is the only war where new ways to commit genocide were actively engineered and most of this happened on the Eastern Front.
>Leningrad was the base for the Baltic fleet, home to a large number of armament factories (11% of total Soviet industrial output), was right next to Finland (a Nazi ally), and a politically significant target
This changes nothing of that which I've said.
>>291435
>Meanwhile in Japan, entire cities were genocided through fire by the US airforce, and not even due to partisan actions but as a revenge for attacking a military base
>genocided
>but as a revenge for attacking a military base
Nah that was because they were in a state of total war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIuFB-dc6iE
>>293280
Oooooh. So it's like a layer of carbon blasted off of the persons (and ladders) body? I think I get it now. Thanks.
>>286546
I'd rather be a WW1 soldier putting a gas mask on every once in awhile then a WWII Japanese soldier starving to death.
>>291054
They made up for it in WW2.
>>291368
>What about Dresden?
History is written by the victors, fritz.
>>295753
Holy shit i had to check up on that. Made my day
Americans vs fog
