Fiercest Battle in History

I completely agree with you Doppleganger that the Eastern Front was by far the largest and most savagely fought conflict of all time. We're in complete harmony on that point. I was never making the case that actions in the Pacific were anything worse - only that nations there too knew what "total war" is. Not even going into the millions of Japanese and Chinese who died - the destruction of Manila happened virtually overnite and hundreds of thousands of fillipinos died in the retaking of their land. The Germans and Russians had no monopoly on complete devastation - they just saw the worst of it.
 
I also believe it's the Eastern Front. It's aided by the fact that the Soviets threw wave after wave of people against the Germans. Now that is crazy stuff.
 
Pete031 said:
aussiejohn said:
Thats a tough one. There were fierce battles all over the place in WW2.

The Pacific Theatre was horrendous as we all know. The Japanese usually fought to the last. Treatment of allied POW's was appalling.

I'll still plum for the Eastern Front. For reasons of scale, ethic and ideology, treatment of prisoners on both sides, as well as shocking treatment of non-combatants. I could go on.

Picking a battle. Have to be Stalingrad. Some say it was like a WW1 blood feast. :(
Click to expand...
Well then WW1 would be the choice....
Click to expand...

I would go for Stalingrad as well. The Somme would be up there as well as the 3rd Battle of Ypre.
 
heres to convince some:

on the factor of deathtoll, battle of the eastern front had tremendous casulties per battle per day per hour that seems to shadow world war I casulties in comparsion. for example, in 1 day the soviets alone had lost 70,000 guards troops during the battle of kursk

on the factor of brutality, treatment of prisioner, u all know that

on the scale of idology, definelty ranks as number 1

on the factor of fierce, as someone mentioned, soldiers fought with determiantion to the deaths, soldiers fought for cellars, sewers, crawlspaces, streets, buildings, forests, anywhere.

on the factor of sheer pain, one can say that the battles of the eastern front had the most dramatic inpact on humans ever seen,: imagine hundreds of tanks clashing and u have a 50 50 chance of dying or alive until the next tank is targeting you. 50-60 thousand artillery pieces firing at once, if ur caught ur pretty much screwed. large scale tank hordes that will shock you if uve seen it on the screen

what more can i say???

the war in the pacific was yes fierce, but cant compare with teh eastern front
 
For every American born person here.... Has every one of the able bodied adult males that are related to you that were alive during WW2 died in that war? Well guess what I never knew any of my greatgrandfathers or grandfathers and neither does any other Russian person my age that I know. The death toll was just unimaginable. It isn't as some say "no family was untouched", it is "all families were touched multiple times". Its a lot different from knowing someone who died in WW2 and having 2-3 generations of your family wiped out. The eastern front is in my opinion the only real case of "total war" ever experienced. As another example, my grandmother has letters from my greatgrandfather which say how he was happy to live for another day because he knew he would die and how living that extra day gave him a chance to kill more Nazi invaders. It is so sad and brutal. If Hitler would have prevailed in Russia, there would be no more Russians left. The soldiers in the Pacific never fought directly to keep thier nationality from being exterminated. Also if not from the Russian perspective, imagine being a german soldier in late '44 in the East. They knew full well that if they didn't resist in combat, the russian soldiers would extract revenge upon civilians. The fierocity of this theater of war is unimaginable and hopefully never again occur.
 
"The soldiers in the Pacific never fought directly to keep thier nationality from being exterminated."

As I said earlier, the Chinese, Japanese, and Fillipinos most certainly _did_. The US did not. Their death tolls were also in the millions. The fact that the Eastern Front was worse, does _not_ mean that it was not "total war" for those three nations. I could list many indications of such. I've already listed one, here's another. The Japanese had every civilian wearing an altered form of their army uniform. Women, boys, and girls were taught warfare. There were kamakazi type assault craft on every inlet and fortifications everywhere. This was while fielding an army of millions in China and Manchuria. The fire bombing of their cities alone made even Dresden seem like a campfire.
 
Charge_7 said:
"The soldiers in the Pacific never fought directly to keep thier nationality from being exterminated."

As I said earlier, the Chinese, Japanese, and Fillipinos most certainly _did_. The US did not. Their death tolls were also in the millions. The fact that the Eastern Front was worse, does _not_ mean that it was not "total war" for those three nations. I could list many indications of such. I've already listed one, here's another. The Japanese had every civilian wearing an altered form of their army uniform. Women, boys, and girls were taught warfare. There were kamakazi type assault craft on every inlet and fortifications everywhere. This was while fielding an army of millions in China and Manchuria. The fire bombing of their cities alone made even Dresden seem like a campfire.
Click to expand...

The Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos certainly did not fight to prevent thier own nationality from extermination. Extermination meaning utter destruction: annihilation, eradication, extinction, extinguishment, extirpation, liquidation, obliteration. The Chinese were taken over by the Japanese, they definetly weren't exterminated. Same with Filipinos. There wasn't any gassing chambers meant to kill every single Filipino in Manila or Luzon, or anywhere for that matter. Say Hitler took Russia, his plan was to eradicate every single "sub-human" which in his mind included gypsies, gays, blacks, jews, and Russians among others. He already had a means with which to do that with and was going full steam ahead by starting on the European Jews. Any Japanese person who thought that the US was going to kill every single Japanese person be it a man woman or child must have been insane. The Japanese fought for honor and considered giving thier life for honor to be a fair trade. That still is a little different than a soldier having the thought that there may not be another living country-man of his if his nation's military fails.
 
But none of the that would make a battle more fierce.

You can't tell me a corpsman bashing the brains out of one opponent with a rock held in one hand while pitching live grenades back out of his hole with the other has a higher level of ferocity to which to rise. His ferocity is as amped as human ferocity gets.
 
Vitaly, I think you need to read something about the fall of Nanking, the battle of Manila, and the fire bombing of Tokyo just for starters before you draw such conclusions. What you're argueing is matters of degree. Sure the Russians where being decimated on a _much_ larger scale, but because that was so does _not_ make the feelings of "total war" and the threat of extermination any less real to the Chinese, Japanese, or Filllipinos.
 
the reason why i havent mentioned fierce battle in china was because there weasnt really much of a battle, however fierece resistance i place china second next to russia
 
I am reading a book called "HELL IN THE PACIFIC". :(

The first hand descriptions of battles are keeping me awake at night thinking about them. :shock:

I would have automatically picked Stalingrad but I think some of the battles in New Guinea, Guadalcanal etc are right up there. They are written in horrific detail in the book. It must have been a nightmare for the boys and young men who were there.

The Japanese atrocities are appalling. :shock:

Some of the US boys used to send letter openers home carved out of dead Japanese soldiers thigh bones!!!!!!!! :shock:

Hope I get some sleep tonight :sleep:
 
Most battles fought are bad enough. But the ones that are rated bloody ones are :-
Battle of Berlin
Battles in Saipan Island WW2.
Battle of Stalingrad.
I'll add a few more that are not well known.
- Battle of Sarghari 1897.
SARAGHARI , a small signalling post on the Samana Range in the North-West Frontier Province of India between Forts Lockhart and Gulistan. It is memorable for the stout defence made by its garrison of 21 sepoys of the 36th Sikhs in 1897. Saraghari, a mere mud block-house with a wooden door and a dead-angle, was held for six and a half hours against seven or eight thousand Orakzais, till the 21 Sikhs were finally overwhelmed and killed to a man. A memorial in commemoration was unveiled at Ferozepore in 1904.
Click to expand...
- Battle of Razangla 1962 ('C' company of 13 Kumaon, held out against a brigade attack of PLA, out of 104 men only 5 returned back alive. PLA casualties were approx 600).
 
I think most people would agree that the toughest fight is a mass hand to hand combat situation. On that note, I would think some of the battles fought during the Greek and Roman era would be in the running. Hand to hand combat, no killing further away than you can throw a spear.
In other words, no easy way out. You go nose to nose with the enemy and hack him to death, or get hacked to death.
While there has been moments in modern history where hand to hand broke out, ugly indeed, during the Greek and Roman times it was the only option.
 
--> The bloodiest Modern battle was in-fact "Battle of Stalingrad" without any doubt!

Total death toll was estimated to be 1,109,000 and more then 600,000 wounded. This battle started in the summer of 1942 and ended on 21 January 1943.

--> The 2nd bloodiest battle was was the 142-day Battle of the Somme (WWI - from 1 July to 19 November 1916). More then 1.22 million casualties (dead and wounded) took place of which 398,671 were British (57,470 on the first day alone) and more then 600,00 German and rest were French (official account not known).

--> Also the 880-day seige of Leningrad was among the bloodiest which was maintained by German Army from 30 August 1941 until 27 January 1944. The death toll here is estimated between 1.3 million - 1.5 million. This includes 641,000 civilians. More then 100,000 bombs were dropped on this city alone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top