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The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII

 
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The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 12:08:20 AM   
KG Erwin


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Combining the opponents, the weather, and the racial hatred which resulted in no-holds- barred viciousness, I'd have to give the Eastern Front (Germans vs Russians) and the Pacific (Allies vs Japanese) equal billing as the worst theaters to actually fight in. A close second might be the Southern Theater (Italy/the Balkans), due to the terrain.


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 12:45:46 AM   
AndrewC

 

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Cetniks vs. Ustashe in Yugoslavia

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 12:51:21 AM   
KG Erwin


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quote:

ORIGINAL: AndrewC

Cetniks vs. Ustashe in Yugoslavia


It is an irony that so-called "low intensity" warfare can be medieval in its barbarity. The one thing that keeps wargames from being obscene is the absence of civilian massacres. The sound of women & children being executed is something that none of us could bear.


< Message edited by KG Erwin -- 9/18/2005 12:56:37 AM >


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 12:52:38 AM   
Terminus


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Yeah, "low-intensity conflict" is a phrase invented by someone who's never been in one...

< Message edited by Terminus -- 9/18/2005 1:04:07 AM >


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 1:58:34 AM   
Goblin


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The Ardenne. Especially for the Allied troops at the beggining, and the Germans at the end. Brutal conditions and no supplies.


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 2:45:51 AM   
rich12545

 

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I'd have to pick the Pacific. After reading "The Jungle is Neutral" some years ago (can't remember the author), I think it's a no-brainer. The bugs alone are enough to give this theater the nod. Not to mention the heat/humidity. Or the vicious never quit attitude of the Japanese.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 3:49:52 AM   
Korpraali V


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Have to give it to Winter war. Not Finnish but Russian soldiers.

For example imagine that you are from somewhere southern part of Soviet Union... You have barely seen any snow, never more than five trees... You are trained to do what officer or politruk tells you to do.

You are taken to the middle of the forest. One small road, three meters wide... then just trees... everywhere. Temperature is below -40C (= below -40F) and you don't have winter clothes. There are lots of snow and moving is slow even in the roads. You can't go off the road cause if you do you get lost. No maps, no compass. Officer have one 1:1 000 000 scale map... this road is not in the map...

Suddenly from somewhere in the forest shooting starts... politruks and officers fall... many of your friends fall too... you can't shoot back, your rifle is frozen. You didn't know how to keep it working under this temperature. Then everything is quiet... nothing. Belaja smert (White death). Just wounded begging for help. Soon they are dead because of the temperature. You can't feel your fingers... even if you'd survive, they are lost, as are your toes.

What to do? Making fire makes those ghosts to come back. If you don't make it many now healthy will die, again because of the temperature. You are lost in desert... this time the desert just means endless forest... If there are officers alive, they command you to go forward. If they are dead, you can just wait... the road behind you is broken. You can't surrender because the politruk told that Finns torture every captured Soviet soldier to death.



This is not to praise Finnish army (situation was same to us, but we were more familiar with it - and forest was the Friend, not the enemy) but to the horrible situation those Soviet soldiers were taken to.


(Another one was definately that Cetniks vs. Ustashe in Yugoslavia.)

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 6:53:19 AM   
FlashfyreSP


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Any theater where brave men fought and died was a horrendous theater. They were all horrendous theaters, especially to the men who were in them.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 7:51:17 AM   
KG Erwin


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quote:

ORIGINAL: FlashfyreSP

Any theater where brave men fought and died was a horrendous theater. They were all horrendous theaters, especially to the men who were in them.


I fully realize that, Flashfyre. I start these sort of threads to remind the players of what they are representing while having fun with this peculiar hobby. This is also why I strongly encourage newbies to watch authentic footage and study the history. One of my prime motives is not to glorify war, but to help illustrate the mechanics behind the conduct of war. You know exactly what I'm talking about, but it is difficult to explain to the folks outside of the hobby, or even to some of the casual gamers.

PS Having said that, once in a while it's still fun to let loose a can of whupp-ass on the bad guys.

< Message edited by KG Erwin -- 9/18/2005 8:04:08 AM >


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/18/2005 12:46:58 PM   
Puukkoo


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I'll have to go with the Eastern Front. It was not just another military conflict, which even alone was the most horrible one, but the ideological warfare made it even more horrible.

For Hitler there was three fronts in the war: East, West and Jewish.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/19/2005 4:32:40 AM   
Kevin E. Duguay

 

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Stalingrad.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/19/2005 4:49:07 AM   
Alby


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My house when I piss off the wife!!




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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/20/2005 3:55:13 PM   
omegaall


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Kokoda Track July – Nov 1942

Some comments re one of the Bn fighting at the time.

When the 39th were finally withdrawn from the fighting, they were feverish, suffering from scrub typhus, hookworm and malaria; boots and uniforms had rotted through. They had suffered: 54 men were killed in action, four died of wounds and 125 were wounded during their fight along the Kokoda Track. LTCOL Ralph Honner assembled the remains of the 39th Battalion – by now only 50 men, wearing what was left of their uniforms and kit. Honner commended them for their remarkable efforts and passed on Brigadier Pott’s commendations.
Victorian 39th Militia Battalion, poorly-trained and ill-equipped troops, average age was 18yrs 6 months.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/20/2005 4:35:36 PM   
Sturmpionier


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The Volkhov. Russians and Germans alike called it the "green Hell." I first read about it in Kurowski's Infantry Aces and it creeped me out then. Having reenacted WWII (not the same I know) in pretty much all environments from snow to mountains to urban, get me out of the swamp.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/21/2005 5:17:03 AM   
Kevin E. Duguay

 

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Stalingrad!


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/22/2005 12:21:12 AM   
Adamo

 

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Just finished watching 'Stalingrad'. I know movies tend to exaggerate but the Germans had it pretty bad during that campaign---especially after the encirclement and surrender.


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/22/2005 3:15:19 AM   
EricDerKönig (HMB)

 

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Burma. Nasty terrain, plenty of diseases to go around, extremely hot (during the summer, dehydration was a major issue), followed by drenching rains.
And bugs. Lots of bugs.

Oh, and let's not forget enemy soldiers there as well!

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/22/2005 6:46:11 AM   
elcidce

 

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Id vote for New Ginuea. It has heat, disease, and a brutal enemy at close quarters in the jungle.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/27/2005 6:17:29 PM   
panda124c

 

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It's a matter of perspective, any place someone is shooting at YOU!

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/27/2005 9:02:05 PM   
DoubleDeuce


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quote:

ORIGINAL: pbear

It's a matter of perspective, any place someone is shooting at YOU!

Pbear beat me to it. I was going to say "The one you are/were in!"

Honestly though I would have to go with someplace in the Pacific but afraid I can't pick one as there were more then a couple "horrendous" battles in that theater.

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/28/2005 12:53:29 AM   
KG Erwin


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Double Deuce

quote:

ORIGINAL: pbear

It's a matter of perspective, any place someone is shooting at YOU!

Pbear beat me to it. I was going to say "The one you are/were in!"

Honestly though I would have to go with someplace in the Pacific but afraid I can't pick one as there were more then a couple "horrendous" battles in that theater.


This just goes back to my original thought -- I was speaking in general terms, not specific battles. I have often compared the Eastern Front and the Pacific Theater in terms of the brutal weather/terrain conditions, plus the peculiar atavistic fury and no-quarter-given style of combat which produced atrocities on both sides.

For particularly bad Pacific battles, three come to mind -- (1) Tarawa, which produced more casualties in a shorter amount of time than any other Pacific island assault ; (2) Peleliu-- the unrelenting heat, the horrific terrain and the concentrated slaughter were a foretaste of what was to come at (3) Okinawa -- there were numerous incidents of combat pyschosis, as this battle degenerated into a WWI-style murdering machine with rain, continuous defense lines, and the troops wallowing in a horrific morass of mud and festering corpses. Somehow the Battle of Okinawa was been overshadowed by Iwo Jima, but in its own way it was much worse.


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/28/2005 5:08:38 AM   
Wild Bill

 

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Go back one more, Gunny. The Marines that were left hanging On Guadalcanal, the lack of food, ammunition, good water, deplorable living conditions, being shelled nearly every night be marauding cruisers and destroyers, under constant attack from Japanes on all sides and the island, a horror pit in itself. Let me include from something I wrote some time ago based on materials taken from those who were there. Just imagine these things and living in them week after week.

-----------------------------------


Guadalcanal - The Ultimate Misery



The island itself was typical of so many in the Pacific. From a distance, it indeed looked like a paradise. Once on the island, however, one's point of view quickly changed. The 90 mile length of the place is drenched with rains, for example on Tulagi, the annual rainfall average is 160 inches! The rains were worst from November to March. Gudalacanal is also volcanic. It has a central spine of jagged peaks, covered with tropical rain forest, rising in places 8,000 feet above sea level. On the southwest the mountains slope fairly sharply to the coast.

In contrast, on the northeastern side, the land is more open, even to the point of some wide plains, with numerous rivers and streams slicing it up. These plains had been partially cleared for coconut plantations. The rest of the area was covered by trees, dense brush, and open spaces covered with kunai grass, at times glowing to a height of seven feet. Calling it grass is a misnomer. The blades are thick and coarse, with cutting edges like a saw. It was definitely not the tropical paradise presented by Hollywood.

On disembarking to the island, the first thing to be noticed was the smell. Guadalcanal stank! Superabundant vegetation, quick to rot in the rich, hot, humidified sea air, turned to queasy slime beneath the thick canopy of trees that blocked out much of the sunlight. The odor was one of continual rot. The smell permeated everything on the island.

This also gave opportunity for the cultivation of every type of oniferous insect alive, including malarial mosquitos and nameless bacteria. Rich in mud and coconuts, the island was wet the year round. This continual dampness, cultivator of every type of creature to make a man's life miserable, only added to human discomfort. The heat, under such humidified conditions was almost unbearable. To men weighted down with equipment, it was physically exhausting just to move in such weighted air.

The tropical jungle was like a malevolent beast, arrogant and cruel. Its foul breath was a hint of what lay within its bosom. This included serpents, crocodiles, and centipedes which could crawl across the flesh, leaving a trail of swollen skin. Land crabs scuttled over the jungle floor in the night, sounding amazingly like an infiltrating Jap. There were also scorpions, lizards, leeches, wasps as long as your finger, and spiders as big as your fist. The mosquitos were everywhere, all the time, and carried with them all sorts of disease, primarily the dreaded malaria. Around its fetid shores, hungry sharks swam, waiting for an unsuspecting meal. They were always hungry.

And that is not even considering the psychological impact of being abandoned and under enemy attack all the time.

WB

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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/28/2005 5:39:51 AM   
KG Erwin


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Bill, that was brilliant.

I wanted to bring up Gauadalcanal , or New Britain, or Bougainville. An exasperated (and soaked) Army reporter wrote this: "Bougainville, Nov 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (1943) -- it rained today".

< Message edited by KG Erwin -- 9/28/2005 5:43:28 AM >


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RE: The Most Horrendous Combat Theaters in WWII - 9/28/2005 6:37:15 AM   
Wild Bill

 

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How true! If you've ever lived in a climate of dry and rainy seasons, you know that there is nothing quite like it. The rains began sporadically, a little every day. It builds and builds until you reach a point where it rains...daytime, nightime, all the time. It just never stops. No sun, no dryness, mold, mildew, rot and a small, that damp "tennis shoe" smell.

I love the four seasons much more. Combat was fierce, horrid, but often the living conditions was another type of hell that dogged the soldiers.

On the Eastern Front, I jotted down a few thoughts as to the conditions for the Germans in the winter of 41-42. It makes you think.

Promise, no more of this from me. I just thought you might get a better picture of 1941 deep in Russia. It makes me shiver to think about it.

-----------------------
THE SOVIET WINTER

For some people, such as an old southern boy like me, the concept of severe winter weather is difficult to grasp. Those who live in this type of climate learn eventually to either adjust to it or cope with it.

Few populated places in the world can boast of a winter as drastic as that of the Soviet Union. When the German military entered into war with Russia, they optimistically calculated that it should all be over in six months. Hitler boasted to General von Rundstedt, "Kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will fall down!"

Well, the door had been kicked in, all right; in fact, it had been shattered, but somehow the structure still stood. It had been shaken to its foundation with the violent earthquake called Blitzkrieg, but somehow it had not yet fallen.

October came and went, and the weather deteriorated rapidly. It consisted of heavy rain, snow showers, damp and penetrating mists, all of which made movement nearly impossible, and living conditions uncomfortable. It would only get worse.

Hitler, in order to avoid giving the idea that he expected a long campaign, had made no provision for winter weather, either for his vehicles or his men. On October 7th, when a quick snowfall came and went, Guderian immediately requested winter gear for his troops. He was told that he would receive it in due course (it never came) and "not to make further unnecessary requests of this type."

Tragically, it would be the winter of 1943, two years later, before winter clothing and equipment in larger quantities would be issued to the Wehrmacht. On this first year the Germans were forced to deal with the situation on their own.

By the first of December, German soldiers found the weather was becoming unbearable. They had never experienced such cold. The temperature plummeted at times to 40 degrees below zero! In desperation, they took the uniforms of the dead to wear with their own. Newspaper, if it could be found, was stuffed within their clothing to offer some insulation.

Thousands of surrender leaflets written for the Russians were instead used by the Germans to try help keep out the cold. When the temperatures reached 50 degrees below zero, the breeches of weapons were frozen solid and could not be fired. Oil in trucks and tanks had the consistency of tar, and the drag on the batteries made it impossible to start their engines. Battery plates were warped, cylinder blocks split open, and axles would not turn. If anything had been packed in grease or oil, it would have to be shaved off with knives.

At this point, there was little shelter available. What buildings that had not been destroyed by German artillery had been leveled under Stalin's burnt earth policy. Nothing is more prized in this type of weather than some sort of shelter from it. There was little to be had.

On December 10th, Guderian recorded a low of 63 degrees below zero. On that kind of day, it was death to squat in the open. One witness of the disaster wrote, "A man seeking to perform natural functions would die as a result of a congelation of the anus." Those who could eat watched hungrily as the axe rebounded off the flesh of a frozen horse as though it had struck a stone. Another instance was related of a man who received his boiling soup from the field kitchen. He searched for his spoon for about thirty seconds. By then the soup was lukewarm. Even though he began to eat as quickly as he could, the last spoonfuls would be frozen in the bottom of the bowl.

Some tried self inflicted wounds to end their plight. Those who did not die immediately suffered a slow death from exposure and gas gangrene. Some chose a hand grenade as the weapon of death. They would pull its pin and hold it to their stomach. If not dead instantly, the charred pulp of what had been their intestines would freeze in minutes and stop the bleeding, thus prolonging the agony of death for the poor soldiers.

Suffering with dysentery, frostbite, and often half drunk on schnapps, or whatever could be found to drink, the German soldier was a picture of the most abject misery. It seemed only fitting that a special medal was struck for those who participated in the first winter campaign. It was known as the Gefrierfleisch Orden, or the Order of the Frozen Meat. Ironically, it was the coldest winter Russia had experienced since Napoleon's invasion in 1812.



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