Posted on Apr 11, 2016
What is the toughest battle ever fought by United States forces?
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In your opinion, what was the toughest military battle ever fought by United States forces? Why? What was it's significance? What was the toughest era to be a combat Soldier in, according to your opinion?
Military History
American History
Warfare
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 34
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I have to go with WWI here. People have never felt panic until they start getting shelled and gassed in a confined area and aren't able to flee. If you go over the top you get killed by the enemy, if you run you get killed by your own officers. They didn't have proper gas masks so their lungs were fried and they slowly drowned in their own blood.
The dead piled up a few yards from the trench, and swelled and burst in the sun because they couldn't get to them safely. thousands of dead rotting horses and cattle lay everywhere, and the soldiers were forced to stand in their own feces. Not to mention the rain and the cold. And if you did manage to go over the top you were most likely killed by mines, artillery, or cut down by machine guns while you were tangled up in concertina wire. And the worst part was the mental portion. There was absolutely no hope. There weren't towns being captured all of the time, you'd drive them back a few hundred yards, only to be chased back a week later into the same hole you had just left.
It was a grey, desolate wasteland of absolute hell. Id take any other war before I went through that.
The dead piled up a few yards from the trench, and swelled and burst in the sun because they couldn't get to them safely. thousands of dead rotting horses and cattle lay everywhere, and the soldiers were forced to stand in their own feces. Not to mention the rain and the cold. And if you did manage to go over the top you were most likely killed by mines, artillery, or cut down by machine guns while you were tangled up in concertina wire. And the worst part was the mental portion. There was absolutely no hope. There weren't towns being captured all of the time, you'd drive them back a few hundred yards, only to be chased back a week later into the same hole you had just left.
It was a grey, desolate wasteland of absolute hell. Id take any other war before I went through that.
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Antietam / Sharpsburg September 17, 1862. 130,000 soldiers counting both sides, 22,000+ casualties, 3,600+ dead in basically one day.
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1stSgt (Join to see)
Landscape Turned Red is a good read on the battle. Tells the story quite well.
http://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Turned-Red-Battle-Antietam/dp/ [login to see]
http://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Turned-Red-Battle-Antietam/dp/ [login to see]
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam: Stephen W. Sears: 0046442656689: Amazon.com: Books
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam [Stephen W. Sears] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The death count from the Battle of Antietam was the largest of any single battle in American history. Landscape Turned Red
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1stSgt (Join to see)
CSM William Payne - The real killer was that the tactics did not change as the weapons grew more deadly. Weapons that are effective at 800 yards are devastating at 50.
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CSM William Payne
Your exactly right. I was going to add that little fact but forgot. The last war faught using Napoleon tactics but with modern technology.
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MAJ L. Nicholas Smith
CSM William Payne - While you are correct that many medical techniques and technology were similar to those used during the Revolutionary War, the system did undergo some real progress during the war. Of note, the use of medical evacuation to move a casualty from the battle to the hospital was a new innovation and saved untold numbers. At Antietam, the Union used more than 50 ambulances where the wounded ran around 10,000. In addition, doctors led their own innovative methods such as Benjamin Howard who developed a new means of treating sucking chest wounds and quadrupled the survival rate. In other wars, survival rates for the same wound had been as low as 5%.
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This is A very tough question in itself... Toughest is a generalized term. Everybody has their own idea when it comes to what it means. So only one battle comes to mind for me. The Battle for Iwo Jima..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Medal_of_Honor_recipients_for_the_Battle_of_Iwo_Jima
List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Battle of Iwo Jima - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Battle of Iwo Jima took place in February and March 1945 during World War II and was marked by some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The American invasion, known as Operation Detachment, was charged with capturing the airfields on Iwo Jima.
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Battle of Meuse-Argonne World War I. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was the largest in United States military history, involving 1.2 million American soldiers, and was one of a series of Allied attacks known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which brought the war to an end. The battle also cost 26,277 lives, and 95,786 wounded, making it the largest and bloodiest operation of the war for the American Expeditionary Forces.
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We should come up with some nominations from each conflict and get a bracket going.
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CH (MAJ) William Beaver
That would be actually interesting. Can you start one? Come up with 32 battles. Four wars 'regions' - CIVIL WAR/REVOLUTIONARY, Spanish American/WW1, WW2/Korea/Vietnam, Cold War/Gulf War/War on Terror.
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SSG Carlos Madden
I think you could also do it by quarters of US Military History; 1616-1715, 1716-1815, 1816- 1915, 1916-2016. I'm not sure how we could do this on RP though. We'd need to get a list of nominations and then use a online bracket generator online.
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I think all eras are tough in their own ways. After the adaptation of technology, the problem comes with opposing forces finding a counter to the technology, or forcing us into situation where we cannot use it.
It can be argued that many of our troops struggled during the early World Wars, but this can be due to the lack of equipment while troops were serving in the front lines. In today's world, troops are well equipped (for the most part), but the issues they are facing are not knowing who the enemy is. Surprises are around ever corner.
It can be argued that many of our troops struggled during the early World Wars, but this can be due to the lack of equipment while troops were serving in the front lines. In today's world, troops are well equipped (for the most part), but the issues they are facing are not knowing who the enemy is. Surprises are around ever corner.
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