Worst battles
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You are currently reading a thread in /k/ - Weapons
What's the most nightmareish battle your country's armed forces have ever fought in?
Which battle in history would you say was the worst? Not necessarily in terms of casualties but in sheer horror.
>>29479827
the somme for britain and france for sure
just waves and waves of soldiers going up against the machine guns
>>29479827
>>29479855
Verdun for France.
It's not like Verdun or Somme was any nicer for the Germans. Casualties are usually the same for both sides in these major battles.
>>29479855
Verdun was probably far worse than the Somme. Literally a meat-grinder. Entire divisions were thrown into massed artillery fire and just ceased to exist. The ground was a pulpy mass of mud, blood and decaying flesh. Men went mad from the horror.
The Somme is usually cited as the worst for British/Commonwealth troops but the Normandy campaign in 1944 saw a higher attrition rate. The allied armies lost most of their best men killed or wounded in the bocage and the quality dropped sharply with their replacements which showed in their lethargic, risk-avoiding performance for the rest of the war.
For the Americans it was surely either Iwo Jima or Peleliu. Read Eugene Sledge's memoir With the Old Breed and he says replacement marines coming into the decimated rifle companies often just broke immediately, such was the horror. I can't imagine how it must have been for the Japanese under constant bombardment and massively outgunned and out-numbered. They must have been at the absolute limit of human endurance.
What about Paschendaele?
Those stories about the duckboards always freaked me out. How many people drowned in that fucking mud?
For the English - the battle of Towton Moor, 1461. Sixty thousand medieval warriors hacking each other to death in a snowstorm - nearly thirty thousand dead, an appreciable percentage of the male population of the country at the time. By far the worst battle fought on British soil.
For the united states the battle of Antietam or Meuse-Argonne
22,000 dead at Antietam and 26,000 at argonne
>>29480250
What duckboards?
>>29480372
these
>be wounded/wearing heavy gear
>come under barrage, boards tilt, slip off
>drown
dulce et decorum est..
>>29480334
I was just about to say antienam.
>26k dead in a single DAY of battle
theryre all bad
>>29480437
>>29480334
That's not true.
3,600 dead overall.
For Australia, the Campion battle. Can't imagine the horror of being subjected to relentless waves of onslaught.
Any battle in the age of musket and cannon must have been utterly horrific. Advancing slowly in column formation against the enemy, grapeshot ripping through the ranks spalshing you with blood and brains, slipping and sliding in the entrails of the screaming, dismembered wounded, the drim beat urging you on, the sergeant with sword and half-pike at your back to kill you if you hesitated. Then you close to within fifty metres and the enemy infantry level their muskets, every single one seemingly pointed at you, then you hear the officers' shout "fire!"
Who in the modern age would have the courage to endure that?
>>29480334
On American soil, Antietam was probably to ugliest battle fought, the fact that both sides were Americans makes it worse. On foreign soil, Eugene Sledge's account of Okinawa sounds absolutely hellish, the battle of Hürtgen Woods was also a bloody ordeal.
Not war related but the American Frontier during the early 1800s was pretty brutal
>>29480493
>ready to amush emus
>start spraying them
>after a short while your lewis gun jams
>emus swarm you, cant get backup gun in time, resort to knife
>cut your way out while getting torn from all sides
>turn around, notice your buddy didnt follow you
>emus all swarm his corpse, giving you a chance to get away before they are done
>>29480493
Australia just didn't have a chance in that war. My grandfather fought in the Siege of Darwin.
>>29480493
>>29480557
>>29480587
OP here. Stop shitting up my thread!!!
>>29480680
Im sorry, I just think the men who fought in the Emu War are forgotten. My father was at Pine Creek when they routed the Australian 5th Army
>>29480680
watcha gun do bout it, faggot?
>>29479827
just finished reading Poilus the memoirs of Corporal Louis Barthas. He wrote about how some many dead men had be literally pulverized at Verdun that the air itself smelled like a rotting corpse. The good thing for being a French soldier there was that most regiments were rotated in and out within a matter of weeks. Even in a few weeks though his regiment suffered huge losses.
>>29480486
I don't know man, it's almost worse to be a casualty than to just be killed outright. The biggest single military expenditure for the first year after the war ended was prosthetic limbs for wounded soldiers.
>>29480860
"You don't know"?
26,000 dead is wrong. That's fact.
short answer anything from world war 1.
no really.
Between bad tactics poor understanding of modern equipment and the fact that there was a gross mismatch between man and technology nothing could be worse.
Literally the only thing worse would be a medevil army of 1 million men charging into a line held by 70 thousand us army troops
>>29480791
The French stayed in the line far longer than British/Commonwealth troops, which contributed greatly to the collapse in discipline in 1916. Brave men reach the end of their courage when they are under constant pressure.
>>29479827
For the USA probably Antietam, shitloads of casualties very quickly, tons of destruction, and on top of that it's a Civil War which makes things twice as bad.
>>29479827
Frog here.
As some Anons said, Verdun probably hold the title of the worst battle though I would also mention, while not battles by themselves, the months of August and September 1914 with over 300 000 KIA (plus thousands more DOW).
The 22 August 1914 being the bloodiest day in French military history with 27,000 killed.
To lighten the mood here's the origin of The Laughing Cow trademark.
The cheesemonger, Léon Bel, served during WW1 in a meat supply unit which had for emblem a laughing cow, nicknamed Wachkyrie (sounding like Vache Qui Rit - Laughing Cow) to mock the Valkyries of Norse/Germanic legends.
>>29479827
https://en.www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leiden
Probably this for the Dutch, long ass siege with thousands of people starving.
Either that or some battle against the Japs, sonce they would sometimes behead all prisoners after the war.
>>29479827
>Which battle in history would you say was the worst?
honestly think medieval warfare would be the worst.
People hacking each other to bits with dull pieces of metal.... just hack and stab, rinse and repeat. All that screaming from people bleeding out amputated and sliced into a spiral ham.
yea, artillery is shitty, but if you get hit, you gonna die pretty soon. Its not like you gotta stumble over the bodies of your comrades and enemies to advance the front line into theirs and push them back.
>>29480912
>Literally the only thing worse would be a medevil army of 1 million men charging into a line held by 70 thousand us army troops
I have never wanted to see something as badly as I want to see that right now
Battle of the Somme for the Newfoundland Regiment
8:45 a.m., Brigadier-General Douglas Edward Cayley ordered the Newfoundland Regiment to advance "as soon as possible".
The men left their trenches at 9:15 a.m., with orders to seize the first and second lines of enemy trenches. But as they moved down the exposed slope towards No Man's Land, no friendly fire covered their advance. Instead, German cross-fire cut across the advancing columns of men, killing or wounding most of them before they even reached No Man's Land.
When roll call was taken, only 68 men answered their names
What, no Gallipoli?
>>29481225
After the battle*
The Indianapolis was probably most scary..
All those sailors getting eaten by sharks and your just floating around in the middle of a huge feeding frenzy.
>>29480218
>but the Normandy campaign in 1944 saw a higher attrition rate
Because Monty still hadn't learned the lessons of 1914
The Battles of the Isonzo.
So bad that the italians literally brought back the roman punishment of decimation for thier own units.
But seriously. Imagine everything that is awful about the western front. Now, you're not attacking over a relatively flat piece of ground, you are literally attempting to fight your way up a mountain.
>>29481283
First five episodes of Gate
>>29481409
Nonsense. The terrain was greatly to the advantage of the defender. Monty had his faults but he was very sparing of his mens' lives. He learned the value of meticulous preparation under Plumer in WWI.
>>29481439
With enemy artillery trying to bring down an avalanche on you.
>>29481632
And trenches chipped out of rock with hand tools, while under fire.
>>29480759
I'll shove you back up your mum's cunt in a minute, lad.
>>29480249
>For the Americans it was surely either Iwo Jima or Peleliu.
Hürtgen Forrest resulted in 33k US casualties, yet no one seems to know that meatgrinder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BB14A649zs
>>29479827
Finnfag here, I'd say Poltava is pretty damn high on the list of worst battles, though the most horrifying must be the Soviet breakthrough in February 1940 and the beginning of the last major offensive in June 1944 (Finnish Army was falling apart in both cases, though in summer of 1944 the situation was salvaged by a number of small successes that paved the way for "Miracle of Ihantala" which boosted the morale enough to last until the cease fire was signed)
