Fiercest Battle in History

[elmosquito]

in Stalingrad Soviet losses were excessive in spite of the fact that the Germans had few planes, guns, ammo fuel and food and tanks were of little use, mostly owing to extremely stupid Soviet leadership.

Lmao, they were facing the sixth army, the same which invaded poland, drove the british off the dunkirk, the same which invaded yugoslavia in weeks, and which was trained to invade britain in case the english channel was cleared. sixth army was elite and had more war supply that the soviets.

they had planes and the first day of bombing alone, 40 thousand died inside stalingrad. the defeat of the sixth army was never anticipad by anyone. Soviet victory was a miracle and due to their dogged defense of the city in urban warfare and decisively taking advantage of the weak flanks of the sixth army held by rumanian and italian troops

 

[brinktk]

then its not fierce enough. When combatants on both sides have the luxury of waiting from a relative safety and afraid to take the offensive to minimize casualties, its never gonna be as fierce as the battles where combatants are whipped by their officers to run on suicidal attacks, or driven by their fanatic love for their nation and insatiable hate against the enemy to force the fight. That is fierce and corollary it becomes bloody.

These kinds of fight is found in total wars, where the very survival of the nation (and of the race) is at stake. its a whole lot different to your "fierce' skirmishes where a hundred death is considered high and the combatants went back to the barracks at the end of the day to play cards lmao

So much judgement...there is little distinction to the dead and maimed.

If you had ever been in combat you would know numbers alone aren't enough for a determination. Hand to hand combat is hand to hand combat regardless if it is at Stalingrad or Khe Sanh.

Before you respond, perhaps you should introduce yourself...that is customary forum etiquette....erm....everywhere....

 

[elmosquito]

So much judgement...there is little distinction to the dead and maimed.

If you had ever been in combat you would know numbers alone aren't enough for a determination. Hand to hand combat is hand to hand combat regardless if it is at Stalingrad or Khe Sanh.

Before you respond, perhaps you should introduce yourself...that is customary forum etiquette....erm....everywhere....

sorry, i'm elmosquito.

Yes i've never been in any battle but one could judge the fierceness of one battle just by the sheer scale of devastation it made.

a shoot-out between only two persons could never equal the fierceness of a skirmish between two platoons. Just as the latter could never equal a full-blown warfare waged between two or more armies.


so lets say iwo jima was a fierce battle. but in the eastern front, there were multiple iwo jima's being fought at the same time or one after another in various towns or villages. and it played out for four years. more men, tanks, guns, and aircrafts were committed in the eastern front than had ever before in any battle in human history. there were two superpowers, both with the ability to destroy each other, going at it in a prolonged war of attrition. and their conflict created a lot of vicious meat-grinding battles like rzhev, the seelow heights, sevastopol, etc. that is my definition of fierce.

if your definition of fierceness is how good the hand-to-hand combat played regardless of the scale, then maybe you should look for it in the UFC or some boxing fight like Hagler-Hearns, that fight was nasty.

 

[JOC]

Fiercest Battles

Undoughtably the battles on the Eastern Front were exceptionally fierce. It was a neither ask or give quarter war with Hugh armies that had battles of epic proportions.The Germans planned to enslave - exterminate - banish the Soviets west of the Urals which forced the Soviets into a vengeful must win situation. (Vengeful because the Nazi’s were as unbelievable as this may sound, worse than Stalin).
However Extreme fierceness applies to smaller battles where the intensity of the combat was just as severe but on a smaller scale i.e. Gettysburg, Khe Sang, Iwo Jima. This proves to then be a more difficult questions to answer even though I selected Kursk, which I choose since the tread ask for a single selection. On Iwo Jima you basically had a few square miles of sheer hell for the month long battle (again no quarter ask for non given).

 

[lljadw]

The eastern front was a war of annihilation. it was the phone booth slugfest everyone bought tickets for, no quarters given, no prisoners taken.

no prisonners taken : this is not correct :in 1941,3 million Soviets became POW and ,after the encirclment of Stalingrad,more Germans were taken POW than were KIA/DOW .

 

[JOC]

POW Eastern front

no prisonners taken : this is not correct :in 1941,3 million Soviets became POW and ,after the encirclment of Stalingrad,more Germans were taken POW than were KIA/DOW .

Total

5 million Soviets were taken as POW, ~ 3.5 million died at the hands of the racist Nazis

2.8 million Germans were taken as POW, ~ 1 million of these died in Soviet captivity.

After Stalingrad the Soviets began to take large numbers of Germans prisoner, particularly after Kursk. It was their turn to do the encirclements. Both countries treated their prisoners appallingly.

 

[brinktk]

sorry, i'm elmosquito.

Yes i've never been in any battle but one could judge the fierceness of one battle just by the sheer scale of devastation it made.

a shoot-out between only two persons could never equal the fierceness of a skirmish between two platoons. Just as the latter could never equal a full-blown warfare waged between two or more armies.


so lets say iwo jima was a fierce battle. but in the eastern front, there were multiple iwo jima's being fought at the same time or one after another in various towns or villages. and it played out for four years. more men, tanks, guns, and aircrafts were committed in the eastern front than had ever before in any battle in human history. there were two superpowers, both with the ability to destroy each other, going at it in a prolonged war of attrition. and their conflict created a lot of vicious meat-grinding battles like rzhev, the seelow heights, sevastopol, etc. that is my definition of fierce.

if your definition of fierceness is how good the hand-to-hand combat played regardless of the scale, then maybe you should look for it in the UFC or some boxing fight like Hagler-Hearns, that fight was nasty.

You've stated your opinion, point taken...you think every other combat in history is child's play compared to the Eastern Front of WWII.

Now I'll state my opinion. I don't think you know enough about history to say one way or the other. Also, fierce is a subjective word...it's apparent that your definition of fierce has a quantitative necessity to it. My definition does not. Of course, I think I have bit better perspective on the subject.

You'll find that disrespect doesn't go too far on this forum...be careful now.

P.S. I meant introduce yourself in the introduction thread BTW

 

[elmosquito]

no prisonners taken : this is not correct :in 1941,3 million Soviets became POW and ,after the encirclment of Stalingrad,more Germans were taken POW than were KIA/DOW .

that was an exaggeration. i was describing the fierceness of the battle. of course there were prisoners. in operation barbarossa alone, one encirclement near kiev captured 750,000 soviet soldiers. 90,000 germans were taken prisoners in stalingrad (but very few, if im right, around only 6000 were able to return to germany. POW treatment on both sides violated international war protocols).

despite this, the bloodbath was still too much such that its as if the policy was to give no quarters, to take no prisoners.

To highlight he fierceness of the war in the eastern front, one must know how good the wermacht was during WWII. It was the master army of the world. In europe, it was unbeatable. It invaded poland, the scandinavia, france, belgium, netherlands, and drove out the british forces without much trouble. Next, it went to yugoslavia, and greece and conquered in a matter of weeks. it again drove the british forces out and establish itself as almost an invincible force.

However, it never faced serious resistance until it launched operation barbarossa into the soviet union. Hitler was expecting a quick victory (a matter of one year. He increased the force of the army into four million men, and sent 3 million of them into the eastern front. Despite this, the Soviets did not collapse unlike the rest of europe. Suddenly, death tolls in the wermacht rose to unprecedented levels (although the soviets had much higher casualties). And for the first time, Germany tasted defeat at the gates of Moscow.

Germany would try again and raised an even larger army the following summer with operation blue and wreck the greatest amount of havoc in the course of the war (russians called this black summer) but at the end, Germany would again be stopped in the city of stalingrad. the next attempt was operation citadel which would be quickly stopped at kursk. From then on, germany would be on the defensive and chased back to berlin.

If the previously invincible wermacht was getting into such kind of trouble despite the increase in its size and greater commitment to war by its citizens, then you know soviets must be giving it a very fierce battle, something that the rest of the world could not deliver.

 

[elmosquito]

You've stated your opinion, point taken...you think every other combat in history is child's play compared to the Eastern Front of WWII.

Now I'll state my opinion. I don't think you know enough about history to say one way or the other. Also, fierce is a subjective word...it's apparent that your definition of fierce has a quantitative necessity to it. My definition does not. Of course, I think I have bit better perspective on the subject.

You'll find that disrespect doesn't go too far on this forum...be careful now.

P.S. I meant introduce yourself in the introduction thread BTW

i didn't say the rest were child's play. Trench warfares in World War I which killed also in terms of hundreds of thousands of soldiers were fought in very appalling conditions. The American civil war introduced industrial scale destruction. However, they still paled in comparison to the destruction wrought by the soviet union-germany confrontation.

yes, i tend to correlate fierceness to the casualties it caused, how much blood was spilled by the battle, and how appalling were the conditions while the battle was being fought. a war adds a more menacing dimension when the combatants were dying of frostbite or being eaten alive by lice and parasites while the fight rages on. In stalingrad, many german soldiers were forced to cannibalize frozen corpses of their own comrades in order to survive the encirclement and still they held on for too long even as zhukov was dropping more artillery shells into the city. I don't know how else you would see the war in the eastern front but i think german and russian soldiers performed superhuman feats and tested the limits of their endurance in that war

 

[brinktk]

i didn't say the rest were child's play. Trench warfares in World War I which killed also in terms of hundreds of thousands of soldiers were fought in very appalling conditions. The American civil war introduced industrial scale destruction. However, they still paled in comparison to the destruction wrought by the soviet union-germany confrontation.

yes, i tend to correlate fierceness to the casualties it caused, how much blood was spilled by the battle, and how appalling were the conditions while the battle was being fought. a war adds a more menacing dimension when the combatants were dying of frostbite or being eaten alive by lice and parasites while the fight rages on. In stalingrad, many german soldiers were forced to cannibalize frozen corpses of their own comrades in order to survive the encirclement and still they held on for too long even as zhukov was dropping more artillery shells into the city. I don't know how else you would see the war in the eastern front but i think german and russian soldiers performed superhuman feats and tested the limits of their endurance in that war

Nostalgia is a powerful thing...you'll find as you grow up and experience more and study more that history isn't short of what you're describing. Based off the qualifications you've set, there's a dozen periods in Chinese history that are more fierce (based off the number killed and the size of the population). Or what about the Mongol conquest, they simply killed everyone and the best estimates are that they killed no less than 20 million people...think about that, 20 million people in a time when there were only a handful of cities with more than 100,000 people in them. Or what about the taiping rebellion, an ideological war that killed well over 20 million people in the 19th century?

The German army wasn't as invincible as you describe. They had good doctrine on the land, but were also (mostly) well led, and exceptionally lucky at the beginning of the war. The fact of the matter was that the fight in Russia was lost before it even started. By 43 the Russians were just as well led, had better equipment, and had considerably closed the gap on soldier quality with Germany. The fighting was no doubt fierce...maybe even the most fierce...but I think there are too many terrible examples in history to definitively say one way or another.

 

[JOC]

Histories Murderers?

~ 6 million Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis which is well publicized. Incredible amounts of Slavs were killed, starved to death or died as slaves as well. In the USSR the real figure may never be known. It certainly was at least 15 million, likely considerable higher. > 2000 towns and villages were but to the torch usually with the people locked inside of large buildings that were set on fire. The SS - police units waited outside with machine guns in case anyone one got out. They filled pits and it wasn’t always Jews who were marched into the pits and shot. There were dozens of these pits found primarily in the USSR, the largest Babi Yar which when uncover by the Soviets was found to contain > 130 thousand bodies. Millions had all their food stocks appropriated to the Reich, leaving them to stave in the Russian winter. It’s estimated as many as 11 - 12 million Soviet citizens were murdered outsight. Add to that 3.4- 3.5 million Soviet POW's that died at the hands of the Nazis. ~ 1 million Gypsies. In Poland at least 3 million non-Jewish people were killed: used as slaves, murdered, starved, etc. In many countries such as Greece > 500 hundred thousand died simple because the Nazis appropriated their food leaving them to starve. Nearly every occupied country in Europe was forced to supply slaves to work in the Greater Reich. The survival rate for the forced labor force was very low. Even the western occupied nations i.e. Italy, the Netherlands and France suffered atrocities, mass executions, etc. In total of those killed “directly or indirectly” may never be known, but easily exceeds 25 million. This does not include those killed in by shelling and bombing. My point with all this is the Nazi Germany murdered – killed more innocent people quicker than any other country - group in History. Greater than 99 % of these murders and deaths occurred in ~ 5.5 years. A chilling legacy. We can be fortunate that US and USSR prevented a Nazi victory.

The Congo, the Mongols, Stalin, Mao all killed 10’s of millions but over a much longer period of time.

However it’s hard to rate this kind of thing seeing as you go back in time groups that committed mass atrocities like the Mongols, Chinese, Romans, Assyrians to name but a few did so on horseback or foot when the population of world was much lower.

Of these I believe the Mongols killed more innocents than any other in group in the ancient world >20 million, perhaps as many as 40 million as Brinktk stated. This was over a considerably longer period of time. I don’t know how many of these people died fighting the Mongols and how many were simply murdered. If I recall the Mongols would sometimes allow a city to surrender unconditionally, thus sparing the inhabitants. However at the least sigh of resistance they generally massacred the inhabitants. Prior to the European conflict of WW2, the Mongols raids and conquest were considered to be the most devastating event in history.

 

[elmosquito]

~ 6 million Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis which is well publicized. Incredible amounts of Slavs were killed, starved to death or died as slaves as well. In the USSR the real figure may never be known. It certainly was at least 15 million, likely considerable higher. > 2000 towns and villages were but to the torch usually with the people locked inside of large buildings that were set on fire. The SS - police units waited outside with machine guns in case anyone one got out. They filled pits and it wasn’t always Jews who were marched into the pits and shot. There were dozens of these pits found primarily in the USSR, the largest Babi Yar which when uncover by the Soviets was found to contain > 130 thousand bodies. Millions had all their food stocks appropriated to the Reich, leaving them to stave in the Russian winter. It’s estimated as many as 11 - 12 million Soviet citizens were murdered outsight. Add to that 3.4- 3.5 million Soviet POW's that died at the hands of the Nazis. ~ 1 million Gypsies. In Poland at least 3 million non-Jewish people were killed: used as slaves, murdered, starved, etc. In many countries such as Greece > 500 hundred thousand died simple because the Nazis appropriated their food leaving them to starve. Nearly every occupied country in Europe was forced to supply slaves to work in the Greater Reich. The survival rate for the forced labor force was very low. Even the western occupied nations i.e. Italy, the Netherlands and France suffered atrocities, mass executions, etc. In total of those killed “directly or indirectly” may never be known, but easily exceeds 25 million. This does not include those killed in by shelling and bombing. My point with all this is the Nazi Germany murdered – killed more innocent people quicker than any other country - group in History. Greater than 99 % of these murders and deaths occurred in ~ 5.5 years. A chilling legacy. We can be fortunate that US and USSR prevented a Nazi victory.

The Congo, the Mongols, Stalin, Mao all killed 10’s of millions but over a much longer period of time.

However it’s hard to rate this kind of thing seeing as you go back in time groups that committed mass atrocities like the Mongols, Chinese, Romans, Assyrians to name but a few did so on horseback or foot when the population of world was much lower.

Of these I believe the Mongols killed more innocents than any other in group in the ancient world >20 million, perhaps as many as 40 million as Brinktk stated. This was over a considerably longer period of time. I don’t know how many of these people died fighting the Mongols and how many were simply murdered. If I recall the Mongols would sometimes allow a city to surrender unconditionally, thus sparing the inhabitants. However at the least sigh of resistance they generally massacred the inhabitants. Prior to the European conflict of WW2, the Mongols raids and conquest were considered to be the most devastating event in history.

the mongol conquests spanned for almost a hundred years and its possible that many deaths attributed to the mongols were actually caused by epidemics, famine, natural catastrophe and even migration. this is not to say that the mongols weren't that brutal. they were known to divert rivers to wipe out cities, in iran, they wiped out three-fourths of the population. they built pyramids out of dead bodies.Consider also that most of these deaths were slaughter of defenseless civilians.

in the eastern front, a good fraction of deaths were military deaths due to the battles itself which were a give and take affair by most accounts.
In Operation Barbarossa, russian military casualties (dead, wounded and POWs) was about 2.5 to 3 million, On the German side, around 750 thousand to a million. Incomprehensible numbers reached in a span of around eight months

 

[JOC]

Soviet WW2 deaths

Yes the military deaths for the USSR were exceptionally high, including POW's ~ 11 million Soviet military personal died.

However at least 16 million, perhaps as high as 20 million civilians died, the majority were shot, burned, died by engineered starvation, died as forced labors, etc. A few million died as a result of bombing and shelling, i.e. 40 thousand died when Stalingrad was bombed. Often Stalin didn't allow citizen of the cities to evacuate concerned that the refugees would block the through fairs and cause panic.

The Nazi's considered the Soviet peoples to be sub-human Slavs and treated the Soviet peoples deplorably. Himmler stated that if 5000 Russian women died digging a tank trap that saved the life of a single German soldier they had served their purpose. Manstein is quoted to have said any food stocks allow to the locals that were not in service to the Wehrmacht are wasted.

For a long time the magnitude of the Soviet losses was understated so as not to lose face.

 

[tetvet]

Stalin wiped out 80% of his military officers prior to WWII because he was given information that these officers were plotting to overthrow him it turns out the information unknowing to him was supplied by the Germans .

 

[joegoodbye]

perhaps operation goodwood...normandy,where brits and canadians took on 6 panzer divisions on a fifty mile front,the greatest concentration of german armour in the whole war,the brits lost over 300 tanks

 

[Queensman]

War of the roses and the Battle of Towton in 1461.
In one days battle in terrible weather, 28,000 died.
Add the wounded who died over the next few days and the figure could be significantly higher.
The bloodiest and fiercest battle ever in England

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton

 

[JOC]

perhaps operation goodwood...normandy,where brits and canadians took on 6 panzer divisions on a fifty mile front,the greatest concentration of german armour in the whole war,the brits lost over 300 tanks

It was 2nd to Kursk in the amount armor lost by both sides.

However you are right the battles in and around the Caen area saw the most concentrated armor warfare on the western front. British and Canadian losses were atrocious. I believe they lost well over a thousand AFV's alone before it was over, "including the battles north of Caen". Britain basically took on most of the Germans heavy armor that was in France at that time and in doing so allowed the Americans to breakthrough to the east. This caught the Germans in the Falaise Pocket . Now it became the Germans turn to lose thousands of AFV's and vehicles.

 

[JOC]

War of the roses and the Battle of Towton in 1461.
In one days battle in terrible weather, 28,000 died.
Add the wounded who died over the next few days and the figure could be significantly higher.
The bloodiest and fiercest battle ever in England

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton

I don't know about single day losses. No war can compare to the losses suffered in less than 4 years of fighting on the Eastern front of WW2. Soviet military losses were (10.6 and 12+) million (~ 3.5 million of these were POW who died at the hands of the Nazi's). German military losses on were > 3.5 million (~ 1 million of these were POW's who died at the Soviets hands). At > 1/2 million German allies died as well. It's difficult to but an exact number but the total number of military deaths on the Eastern front in WW2 ranges from ~ (14.6 to 17 million). Some modern Soviet historians believe Soviet losses were higher. This leaves us with a bone chilling average of ~ 11,000 men/day dead on the Eastern front of WW2.

 

[Queensman]

I don't know about single day losses. No war can compare to the losses suffered in less than 4 years of fighting on the Eastern front of WW2. Soviet military losses were (10.6 and 12+) million (~ 3.5 million of these were POW who died at the hands of the Nazi's). German military losses on were > 3.5 million (~ 1 million of these were POW's who died at the Soviets hands). At > 1/2 million German allies died as well. It's difficult to but an exact number but the total number of military deaths on the Eastern front in WW2 ranges from ~ (14.6 to 17 million). Some modern Soviet historians believe Soviet losses were higher. This leaves us with a bone chilling average of ~ 11,000 men/day dead on the Eastern front of WW2.

Very true but I reckon 28,000 soldiers dying by sword, axe, lance and many different types of blunt instrument would count among one of the fiercest battles ever.
Bear in mind that the actual fighting took place over a maximum ten hour period and was more likely to be 5-8 hours of battle.
That's 3,500 killed an hour in hand to hand combat, but quite a few were killed by arrows because one side used the strong wind to there advantage.

 

[JOC]

Very true but I reckon 28,000 soldiers dying by sword, axe, lance and many different types of blunt instrument would count among one of the fiercest battles ever.
Bear in mind that the actual fighting took place over a maximum ten hour period and was more likely to be 5-8 hours of battle.
That's 3,500 killed an hour in hand to hand combat, but quite a few were killed by arrows because one side used the strong wind to there advantage.

Those ancient battles had to unbelievable brutal. Image swinging a sword or battle axe for a couple of hours straight. The battle couldn't possible last but for a short while. To even go 5 hours they must been exhausted to no end. Many of the ancient battles were over in a matter of hours as you point out. You can only fight like that for so long. I'm surprised they could even go on for that long considering the stamina needed.