A Novice with Questions on the Somme

Hello,
My first post and to start, may I thank all who have given their time lines, the level of detail, in many shows an truly inspiring level of research, knowledge and thought. I had considered a time line looking at the battle of the Somme, but the more I soon discovered that I had far too many unsupportable assumptions, a level of hand wavium that was growing like a weed and to cap it all a P.O.D so dubious as to make it questionable even as an A.S.B! My problem is that I was looking at a desired outcome and then trying to magic a P.O.D, I may as well have said on the 30th June the Germans had a huge party and so were so drunk as to do nothing to stop the advance (it would have been more plausible and honest as an A.S.B ):(
So instead I would like to rephrase a thread I discovered by (old ironside I think) and ask some questions regarding the Somme to see if any P.O.D could be found that would make a significant change.
1. Could more tanks and (personel carriers) be developed in time for 1st July
2. Was there any way more H.E and less shrapnel been used and would it have made a difference.
3. Were there any good reasons for an alternate bombardment strategy to have been developed before the lessons learned on the first day?
4. Could the Army have been better trained and front line officers given more freedom to act?
5. Would lightening the infantry mans load and encouraging a series of short rushes get more men across no man’s land?
6. Would seeking to grab hold bight size chunks of the front rather than seeking a breakthrough make a diference?
In short are there any changes that could give the forces a tactical advantage on the 1st to achieve better results and fewer casualties?
Given the political imperative to attack to help the situation at Verdun, location and timing are not an option as a point of difference.
I hope thus has not already been debated and debunked to the extent of the sea mammal.
Thanks in advance D.J.P
 
sorry poor typing and spelling

Drat, my first post and I can't even get the spelling of question right!:(
I will need to remember I can only spell check the main body by creating in word first. Sorry
 
1. Could more tanks and (personel carriers) be developed in time for 1st July
2. Was there any way more H.E and less shrapnel been used and would it have made a difference.
3. Were there any good reasons for an alternate bombardment strategy to have been developed before the lessons learned on the first day?
4. Could the Army have been better trained and front line officers given more freedom to act?
5. Would lightening the infantry mans load and encouraging a series of short rushes get more men across no man’s land?
6. Would seeking to grab hold bight size chunks of the front rather than seeking a breakthrough make a diference?
In short are there any changes that could give the forces a tactical advantage on the 1st to achieve better results and fewer casualties?
Given the political imperative to attack to help the situation at Verdun, location and timing are not an option as a point of difference.
I hope thus has not already been debated and debunked to the extent of the sea mammal.
Thanks in advance D.J.P
  1. Tanks probably not, personnel carriers certainly not. A New Excalibur is pretty good on this, but it should be noted that really until the end of the war the environment inside a tank was so hostile that any infantry carried inside needed several hours to recover before they were fit for combat. The main culprit was the level of exhaust and petrol fumes inside.
  2. Unlikely to be available - shell production was a major scandal at the time, and those they did have had a horrific number of duds.
  3. You could probably improve it a little, but not much - too much still to learn. Given the constraints they were operating under, I think the fire plan was actually rather good.
  4. Training was pretty good considering (the army wasn't intended for action yet, but had to be thrown in to take the pressure off the French at Verdun). Junior officers should have been given more freedom of action, but given the terrible state of communications at the time plus how poorly they and their troops were thought to be trained, it's quite hard to justify this without a Somme-like battle.
  5. Yes. Unfortunately, they would then have been massacred by the German counter-attack on arrival. They weren't loaded up like that for kicks, they needed ever ounce of that kit to survive and fight in the captured positions for potentially a day or two before relief reached them.
  6. Yes, but mainly in the artillery fire plan. If you're only trying to do bite and hold, the artillery can provide final protective fires around the newly taken position for some time and allow your guys to get properly dug in. Given that German doctrine of the time was for immediate and vigorous counterattack, this makes a big, big difference - there is no way that they could call for artillery fire in support in dealing with such a counterattack, so it HAS to be pre-planned.
 
yes A.P.C a big problem

Thanks for the answers PDF27
Regarding the A.P.C, the mark IX tank did not see service but given a desire for one, could it have been produced earlier even with no roof to give the men a chance to breath. The question is where does the need for such a device come from? Who in 1915 is going to say “you know what would go really well with the land ship a troop land ship get the men over no man’s land and right behind the enemy where they can support the land ships and do most good” Unless a plausible reason for its development can be found it places the idea right back in A.S.B land and this is before the hand waving that speeds development and production using the never empty warehouse of everything needed! Even if a plausible development path can be found could tactics be found to make use if these devices and would they make a difference? I am keen to explore all realistic changes but want to avoid trips into absurdity and my view of Haig is changing as I realise just what was expected of him.
 
Regarding the A.P.C, the mark IX tank did not see service but given a desire for one, could it have been produced earlier even with no roof to give the men a chance to breath.
It could have, but the problem is one of production. They were really struggling to get enough tanks to the front as it was (right to the end of the war, they typically used every single tank they had that wasn't broken, and it was never enough). Why sacrifice tanks doing something only they can do (mobile protected firepower and a way to destroy barbed wire obstacles) to do something that can be done in other ways, albeit with slightly higher casualties?

The question is where does the need for such a device come from? Who in 1915 is going to say “you know what would go really well with the land ship a troop land ship get the men over no man’s land and right behind the enemy where they can support the land ships and do most good”
Haig, probably - he knew as soon as he saw the tanks that he wanted them, in as large numbers as possible and as soon as possible. The problem is that he's well aware of the need to prioritise - so will only be interested in them as an APC if he's got enough. So the real problem is sorting out mass production of the things in the thousands rather than the handfuls.

Unless a plausible reason for its development can be found it places the idea right back in A.S.B land and this is before the hand waving that speeds development and production using the never empty warehouse of everything needed! Even if a plausible development path can be found could tactics be found to make use if these devices and would they make a difference?
Tanks emphatically did make a huge difference, but the fundamental problem is one of getting them any earlier. If you can, get yourself a copy of A New Excalibur - it's £4 second hand on Amazon and goes through exactly what you want in great detail. There are a whole bunch of ways the process could have been improved, several of them pretty plausible.

I am keen to explore all realistic changes but want to avoid trips into absurdity and my view of Haig is changing as I realise just what was expected of him.
The other thing to consider is how Haig compares to his predecessors in the British Army, rather than how he compares to his opposite numbers. Before him, the largest British Army ever to fight was commanded by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. A century later, Haig was commanding an army of millions of men - and one that was having to adapt to a revolution in military affairs (to borrow the current term) in the middle of the biggest war it had ever seen. To have not fouled up enormously was a conspicuous achievement, and to have done what he actually did - win the largest series of military victories in British history puts him right up there with the greats.
His real problem was Lloyd George - who was determined to ensure that nobody else got any credit for victory, and indeed to ensure that they took the blame for the heavy casualties. His behaviour in Spring 1918 was particularly reprehensible, and the whole "Lions led by Donkeys" meme largely came from him. The people who actually fought in the trenches seem to have held Haig in generally high regard - it should be noted that they asked him to preside over the Royal British Legion when it was founded (after he quashed suggestions of a separate organisation for officers), and vast numbers of former servicemen turned out for his funeral.
 
Thank you again PDF27, and even more thanks for the pleasure a bunted sickle continues to give. A New Excalibur does seem to be a book that would answer a lot of the questions I have regarding the development of the tank.
Looking at the problems of artillery as the density of guns was greater per 100 yards of front at Loos, than on the Somme, there is an issue of production both of guns particularly the heavy guns as well as shells. I now need to find out why there were so many duds as well as if there was any plausible way of increasing production. It’s easy to say build more but with what and where?
The more I look into this and think the more I start to realise how much I have been influenced by things like Black adder and oh what a lovely war; When a bit of thought would lead me to realise that no general would plan to send his troops to die, and that Somme was fought out of political necessity rather that part of the grand strategic design.
Similarly while naively thinking of bight and hold would this just not place troops in nasty salient’s surrounded on three sides? Sorry to be asking so many questions but given the number of times I have seen Haig disparaged it seemed as if it would be a simple task to find a better result on 1st July 1916. This does not appear to be the case and my lack of knowledge is being exposed more and more.
Thanks again to PDF27 for pointing me in the right direction.
 
Looking at the problems of artillery as the density of guns was greater per 100 yards of front at Loos, than on the Somme, there is an issue of production both of guns particularly the heavy guns as well as shells. I now need to find out why there were so many duds as well as if there was any plausible way of increasing production. It’s easy to say build more but with what and where?
Have a read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Crisis_of_1915 - I think that has to be the POD you're groping for, but it's quite hard to see how you can get the radical improvements you want. The fundamental problem is that they're vastly increasing production, and when you do that (with unskilled labour at that) you're always going to get a vast increase in duds. The Grand Fleet had the same problem at Jutland, which wasn't fixed until they got the Greenboy shells at the end of the war.
The other issue is that the way they dealt with the Shell Crisis in OTL was deeply tied up with Lloyd George's personality - if you want an emphasis on better quality at the expense of production, for instance, you need to have someone else in charge.

The more I look into this and think the more I start to realise how much I have been influenced by things like Blackadder and oh what a lovely war; When a bit of thought would lead me to realise that no general would plan to send his troops to die, and that Somme was fought out of political necessity rather that part of the grand strategic design.
And a lot of this all feeds back to Lloyd George again - he did a proper hatchet-job on all the WW1 generals in his memoirs, largely to make sure he was never associated with the huge casualty figures of the Western Front. They're sadly inevitable when fighting the main strength of a peer enemy, but he never seems to have understood this (or worse, decided to mislead people about it to make himself look better). Utimately the technology and force:space ratio didn't allow anything else, and casualty rates on the Somme and in Normandy in 1944 were broadly comparable.
To put it in Blackadder terms (and I do love the show, but as you may have noticed it isn't exactly a historical documentary), the government was expecting the British Army to be able to replicate the outcome of Umboto Gorge against the Germans.

Similarly while naively thinking of bight and hold would this just not place troops in nasty salient’s surrounded on three sides?
Depends how you do it, but probably not. The main point of bite and hold is that you don't go very deep into the enemy front lines (indeed, the Australian technique of Peaceful Penetration took this even further, nibbling away at an outpost at a time), but do so over a fairly wide area. If you do it wrong there is the risk of a salient, but typically you end up no worse than you started. Probably the classic battle in that style is the taking of Messines Ridge:
Battle_of_Messines_-_Map.jpg

Not a big advance (2 miles at the deepest point), over a substantial length of front, applying overwhelming force and firepower (2:1 advantage in manpower, vastly more than that in firepower) and all over by nightfall on the first day. At the end of it, the line is shorter than when it started and a dominating piece of high ground has been taken.
 
Tanks probably not, personnel carriers certainly not. A New Excalibur is pretty good on this, but it should be noted that really until the end of the war the environment inside a tank was so hostile that any infantry carried inside needed several hours to recover before they were fit for combat. The main culprit was the level of exhaust and petrol fumes inside.
IIRC the Mark VIII tank, aka. the Liberty tank, was the either the first or one of the first tanks to be designed with a separate engine compartment from the fighting compartment to keep the exhaust/fumes and heat away from the operators. Now the Mark VIII was designed in 1917 but there's nothing to stop someone talking to the initial users and getting a flash of inspiration that maybe they should do like with motor cars and keep the vehicle's engine in a separate section.


The fundamental problem is that they're vastly increasing production, and when you do that (with unskilled labour at that) you're always going to get a vast increase in duds. The Grand Fleet had the same problem at Jutland, which wasn't fixed until they got the Greenboy shells at the end of the war.
The really frustrating thing is that they apparently knew about the flaws in their naval shells but didn't get around to fixing them with the new 'Greenboy' design until the latter part of the war. I've often wondered what might have happened if they'd been available sooner, and some of the more stupid policies/mistakes also corrected, in time for the Battle of Jutland.
 
Somme

A couple of things to remember about the Somme.

Most important is that the British Casualties were caused because when the barrage lifted a bunch of guys in feldgrau got out of their bunkers and fought back. Having APC does not change this at all. WW2 APC were providing splinter protection from their own barrage which allowed troops to debus and engage in the 1-2 minutes from the barrage lifting to the defender recovering. In WW1 having a gun tank able engage the unsupressed MG is more important.

The techniques and equipment for that sort of firing were not available to anyone until 17/18.

Incidentally one of the features of bite and hold is keeping the bite close enough that the supporting artillery can respond to the counterattack, which requires pre planning the second phase fires and air observation.

Second is that the German experience of the Somme is losing a regiment a day to Entente artillery just bringing up the rations.

Third is the casualties rates were not unusual ( apart from the first day) in fact rates per men involved have declined over time. What is unusual is the scale of British Involvement.
 
in search of better shells.

A bit more reading on the net has revealed that the No 101 fuse was suspected of a fault causing premature explosion and anecdotal reports of some gunners firing shells without fuses. Given other reports that it was the soft ground, or that wire did not provide enough resistance to trigger the shell helps explain the various figures of between 25% and 33% “duds”
http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/decouvertes/english_fusees_collection_gb.html
The No 106 and derivatives were designed to counter this problem; but were not given to batteries before 1917, possibly as a result of the experience on the Somme. Is it possible that this fuse could be developed six months earlier?
I obviously need to do a great deal more research into the shell crisis (and many other areas), whatever else Lloyd George was he was clearly a skilled politician who was able to claim the credit for the improvement in munitions manufacture even if much of the work was already in place and had not come to fruition. Maybe a P.O.D could be an unfortunate accident that renders him unable to take this position or become prime minister?
A drive for production above all else is likely to impact on quality and so the guns at the front got shells but not enough went bang, but playing with numbers without evidence or facts (say 10% reduction in production means only 10% dud rather than 30% would give more effective shells at the front but less shells overall) takes me back into A.S.B land and would still leave the front line with a short fall in shells, leading to pressure to produce more!
I am sorry if I am going in circles and asking more questions than I can find answers for, but very grateful for the time and information provided so far. Summarising what I hope I have learned so far.
1. While more Tanks earlier would have an impact it not possible for them to be developed and delivered in sufficient numbers to deliver a decisive result. Haig was a great supporter of them and asked for 1000 when he first saw them, and has been criticised for using them too soon.
2. Shells both in terms of quality and quantity are something that could make a difference but finding away to achieve this is going to be difficult, I will need to look at shift patterns were factories working 24 hours a day? If this has the added result of helping the Navy at Jutland then so much the better, but I have opened a big enough can of worms as it is without looking at Jutland.
3. A move to a less ambitious plan, adjust the line get some better terrain and inflict enough casualties on the Germans to save Verdun and give a new army experience of fighting before attempting the decisive breakthrough.


I have some ideas for a point of difference but need to do a lot more reading before attempting a time line, at the moment I am discovering vast ignorance at every turn and the more I read the more I realise I need to learn. I thank everyone who has given advice and hope that I will eventually be able to deliver a coherent plan.
 
His real problem was Lloyd George - who was determined to ensure that nobody else got any credit for victory, and indeed to ensure that they took the blame for the heavy casualties. His behaviour in Spring 1918 was particularly reprehensible, and the whole "Lions led by Donkeys" meme largely came from him. The people who actually fought in the trenches seem to have held Haig in generally high regard - it should be noted that they asked him to preside over the Royal British Legion when it was founded (after he quashed suggestions of a separate organisation for officers), and vast numbers of former servicemen turned out for his funeral.

Lloyd George also overstates his role in the introduction of convoy in WW1... :rolleyes:
 

CalBear

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First, welcome. :)

I also fixed the title typo. :D

Now to the issues...

One of the most critical things to keep in mind is that the Western Front wasn't just at the front of the technological wave, it frequently was creating new tech, more or less on the fly. Tech was introduced before it was really ready for prime time, in futile hopes of ending the remarkable carnage. Both sides came up with potential war winning tech several times (gas, tanks, practical portable flame throwers, etc.) and rushed them into action before they were mature enough to succeed in the goal, the war winning move.

There is really no practical way to change this without altering the political realities that governed how the generals operated. The civilian populations were appalled by the ghastly losses, losses that were out of any sort of historic framework (the entire Franco-Prussian War had around 1/3 FEWER casualties, excluding PoW, than the 1st Battle of the Marne) and were demanding that the leaders "DO SOMETHING". That in turn filtered to the Supreme military commanders through the political chiefs, and thence to the Army and Corp commanders. The Germans couldn't wait until they had an actual doctrine for using gas, much less wait for real practical agents like Mustard to make an appearance. The Entente couldn't wait until it had tanks that would run reliably for an entire day in sufficient quantities to create a massive rupture, much less wait to come up practical doctrine that would ensure that the shock of the first engagement would allow their troops to roll back the enemy for miles and keep them in a state of supply and with artillery support.

The result was OTL, massive potential opportunities lost, along with lives by the millions either snuffed out or altered for all time.

I would recommend that, for a first effort, you look at something slightly less complex than a mid-WW I engagement, unless you are already something of a student of the action. The number of POD involved is quite high, and may prove to be frustrating to you.

In any case, welcome again, and best of luck with the T/L.
 
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