We Were Soldiers — Betrayed in Viet Nam

Robert L. Kocher (freeper RLK)

[Mortimer Snavely]

The Bonapartists used column formations because it was the easiest way to get levée en masse draftees to coalesce in any kind of military formation. It was estremely effective against opposing formations of basically untrained infantry.

Against disciplined, formed troops, it was was worse than useless. The British would deploy in line and fire by platoons, with artillery support. French columns would get shot to pieces.

d'Erlon's Corps assaulted Wellington at Waterloo in massed formation, and after routing Byalandt's brigade, got torn to pieces by the Gordon Highlanders and Picton's cavalry, the Scots Greys. The French were unable to deploy their troops so as to maximize their firepower.

Unfortunately, the British cavalry were did not respond to the recall, continued to charge, and destroyed an artillery battery. With their horses blown, they were cut to pieces in turn by Bonapartist Polish Lancers.

[Junior]

Except that the French and British did deploy machineguns. As I said, the British adopted the Maxim in 1884 and used it on campaign in Africa. The machinegun was part of the OOB in the BEF in 1914. Though they didn't have as many per battalion as the Germans, they still had them and used them.

The Germans were not immune to the "walk steadfastly into the face of fire" paradigm the author attributes to the British. Losses among German troops in the battles of 1914 were horrific.

After the Fall of 1914, the Germans dug into their newly captured areas (well away from the German frontier) and for all intents and purposes stood on the defensive for the rest of the war. The few offensives undertaken (Verdun, for example) were not meant to gain territory but to bring the war to a close on terms favorable to the Germans). Because of the defensive nature of the German positions, they used more machineguns (the weapon was too heavy at the time to be used in an offensive role).

Most of the stories of British soldiers walking shoulder to shoulder into machinegun fire are exagerations of the situation during the Spring offensive of 1916, when after more than a week of heavy artillery preparation, the British troops were told that the forward German trenchline was obliterated (and any survivors were just dying to surrender to someone) and the German troops in the support trenches were too stunned to fight. Additionally, the newly-conceived "rolling barrage" would proceed the attacking forces to keep the enemy's head down until the last moment when the British would storm their trenches.

That being the plan, at H-Hour the initial barrage lifted and the British troops vacated their trenches and dressed ranks (for command and control purposes) and set off across no-man's land. Unfortunately, while a lot of the German forward trenches were destroyed, the average German trench in this region was about 12 meters deep. On top of that, they commanded the high ground (having been able to pick their positions in 1914). The rolling barrage moved too quickly for the attacking troops to keep up and lifted too early to be effective. The surviving German troops were able to man their defenses and slaughter the attacking British troops, killing and wounding about 60,000 the first day of the offensive (the highest losses ever experienced by the British army).

In other words, the only reason the British marched in orderly rows into the killing fields in 1916 was because they thought the Germans wouldn't be there, not because it was something they had done since time immemorial. One need only look at the Second Boer War 12 years before the Great War to see the author did not get his facts straight.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

I'll have to check that passage out in "The Best and the Brightest".

[Zack Nguyen]

Hitler's magical thinking. Hitler's will was so strong, expressed through the German People, that military realtiy no longer mattered.

Hitler came to believe that, like God, his words could make or unmake reality itself. It is amazing how gullible people can be, and how carried away by their own emotions they can be.

In a way, Stalin suffered from the same problem. Though probably less insane and certainly less charming than Hitler, Stalin simply refused to see the complete chaos collectivization wrought upon the breadbasket of Russian, the Ukraine. Instead he simply shot anyone who hoarded grain to feed their families.

[RLK]

In other words, the only reason the British marched in orderly rows into the killing fields in 1916 was because they thought the Germans wouldn't be there

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There were movie cameras at the time, although not very good ones. On some TV documentaries there are quasi newsreels showing British walking steadfastly at high port and being mowed down. It's on old film. The British lost 4,500,000 men. Don't you think it a bit strange to deny somebody is there when the guy to the left and right of you is being killed?

[RLK]

d'Erlon's Corps assaulted Wellington at Waterloo in massed formation, and after routing Byalandt's brigade, got torn to pieces by the Gordon Highlanders and Picton's cavalry, the Scots Greys. The French were unable to deploy their troops so as to maximize their firepower.

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Against raw undisciplined troops a column attack will shakr and rout them. However, you can't deploy musketry effectively from a column formation. You get murderized by a disciplined opposing force.

[Junior]

The British didn't know the Germans were up and about until they closed with the German trench line. The Germans weren't firing as soon as the British cleared the trenches in the Somme offensive.

[RLK]

The films show the British continuing to march at high port as they were mowed down. It was considered "bad form" to duck or fight back from a protected prone firing position. The evidence is on film and in the casualty numbers.

[Junior]

Where do you get this stuff? What do you think trenches were, if not "protected positions?" At the famous Battle of Mons in 1914 ("The Angels of Mons" story), the British fought from hastily dug firing pits. The Second Boer War had pretty much disabused most military leaders of even contemplating the old Napoleanic-style of marching shoulder-to-shoulder.

A lot of the old films weren't shot under actual combat conditions, but were "dramatized" later. Any filming of actual combat would have placed the camera pretty far from the actual fighting so as to protect the film crew and the rather clunky equipment they used. Considering the quality of cinematography at the time, one would be hard pressed to tell if the soldiers being filmed with "shoulder-to-shoulder" or spread out at fairly decent intervals (~3 to 5 meters was typical from photographs at the time -- note, those photographs never show soldiers advancing "shoulder-to-shoulder" across no-man's land). Indeed, I have never encountered a Great War photograph showing men advancing in the manner you (and the author of the execreble piece) describe.

[Mortimer Snavely]

What demonstrates the sheer lunacy of the Somme was that the year before, at Loos, the Germans took out 5,000 British casualties and suffered not a single casualty. The Germans were so sickened that they stopped shooting when it was clear that the British were withdrawing. One result was that the Germans started to refer to the British as "lions led by donkeys."

My Mom's Grandfather, by the way, was at the Somme, in the British cavalry. He got blown up and his arm atrophied away a couple of years later.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

bump for later read

[RLK]

Instead of watching Miss Viva Voom or ET on television you ought to turn on the History Channel or A&E. The entire business is meticulously documented there. It's as good as any college course at the graduate level complete with films. It's indisputable. As far as "Indeed, I
have never encountered a Great War photograph showing men advancing in the
manner you (and the author of the execreble piece) describe." I am not responsible for your lack of research, ignorance, or blindness. You are just pissing in the wind and determined to have your way. As far as the "author of the execreble piece, I am the author." The best thing you could do would be to cease thinking you are important and shut your mouth.

[colorado tanker]

Move troops in column. Musketry can not attack an arrayed force in column as the men in back would be blocked by those in front of them and would not be able to shoot anything.

Very effective tactic. The only people who could cope with it were the British, because of their superior musketry and rate of reload and fire.

[RLK]

Very effective tactic. The only people who could cope with it were the British, because of their superior musketry and rate of reload and fire.

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It's effective against poor discipline and counter-tactics. When you try it against well-trained disciplined troops, as the British were under Wellington, it's suicide. Superior rate of reload and fire was what it was about.

[Junior]

I study this particular time period (late Victorian through the end of the Great War) because I wargame it regularly. I have an extensive library on the Great War because of this. I subscribe to two military history magazines (Military History and Military Heritage). I belong to an on-line discussion group on the Colonial Wars period (which often discusses the Great War). I do not watch ET, but Miss Viva Voom sounds interesting. I watch A&E and the History Channel regularly -- the war they typically deal with is WWII as there is a whole lot more film footage available from that one.

[RLK]

Good luck with your war games.

[Iris7]

With you every word. General MacArthur when he was on his deathbed at Walter Reed pleaded with LBJ to listen to reason. No chance, LBJ had no honor, honesty, or decency.

[Iris7]

Never read The Patton Papers. Have read some Russian stuff on the development of the BT; Christie was copied slavishly in the beginning, including all of his mechanical engineering glaring mistakes, huge overhung cantilevered obviously uncalculated loads, terrible vulnerability to fire, bad transmission design, all speed no guts design philosophy, etc. The suspension system was very good, however, and responded well to further development.

The Japanese didn't use the Christie type suspension that I can see or anything like it. The rest of the Christie approach was mostly intended to get attention for the concept of mechanized war and Patton's view of the coming development of the operational art. Guderian looks to me to have been the best of the pre-WW2 era in seening the possibilities and difficulties of the new technology.

[RLK]

Christie was copied slavishly in the beginning, including all of his mechanical engineering glaring mistakes...

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It's possible. The Soviets were behind and in the position of needing to copy many things. However, I wasn't aware of the Cristie influence on Soviet tanks until I wrote this article. It's infreuently mentioned from the standpoint of Patton's history.