Folks,

Dux:

Yes indeedy a sim that follows the new concept of combat flying from the beginning of the Great War until the Armistice would be monumental. I'm not all that keen on using a shotgun, pistol or brick in combat but I really would like to follow the development of armed fighter aircraft throughout the war on both sides. I would also like to dive like Luke through a blazing wall or Archie as I burn yet another sausage sending the observer plunging to earth under a flaming chute.

It still chews my rudder that these brave men were not allowed to carry parachutes when they were available up with them. So many lives might have been saved. Honestly when you consider that and the useless cavalry charges and the insane dashes across no-man's land into the teeth of machine guns and artillery one might think that the real reason for this deadly war was just to kill as many men as possible on both sides.

As a perfect example is the battle of the Somme in 1916. It is appropriate on this July 1st because that was the first day of that bloody battle 93 years ago today.

... I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this;-
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

July 1st 1916

There had been a huge bombardment of the German lines in advance of the battle but British shells of the day were not powerful enough to penetrate to the Germans deep in their dugouts.

Mines (tunnels) had been dug under the German trenches and packed with explosives.
At 7:28 AM these were detonated just before the British attack, giving the Germans 2 minutes warning.

Then, at 7:30 AM, whistles were blown and the men went ‘over the top’. Each man carried a gas mask, groundsheet, field dressings, trench spade, 150 rounds of ammunition and such extras as sandbags or a roll of barbed wire – up to 80 pounds of equipment.

Thinking that the Germans had been destroyed by the bombardment, and fearing that their inexperienced soldiers would become disorganized in a rush attack, the generals had ordered that the men should walk, in straight lines, across No Man’s Land

They were slaughtered.‘They went down in their hundreds. You didn’t have to aim, we just fired into them,’ wrote one German machine-gunner. One British battalion was unable to advance because it could not climb over the bodies of the dead and wounded blocking the way. The British officers, ordered to carry only a pistol, and leading their troops by example, were easily marked out and shot – the result was chaos. Even seasoned soldiers were shocked.

At this point a British commander decided to detonate a mine which had failed to explode, burying his own men under a hail of rock and soil. Some British units captured enemy positions, but in the afternoon the Germans counter-attacked and recaptured most of the land they had lost.

British casualties on the first day were 20,000 dead and more than 35,000 wounded – ‘probably more than any army in any war on a single day’. The British soldiers at the Somme were not conscripts – they were volunteers, who had flocked to join up in response to Kitchener’s ‘Your country needs you’ poster.

Despite the setback of the first day, Haig – in his HQ in the château at Valvion, 50 miles behind the lines – was still confident. He continued the attacks for 4 more months. He made a major attack, following the same plan, and with the same results,in September. IMHO Haig should have been shot.


Originally Registered January,2001 Member Number 3044

"Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed" - Edmond Gwenn, "The Trouble With Harry"

CELEBRATING EIGHTEEN YEARS and over 20 MILLION VIEWS on SNAFU's HWH thread- April 2019