AHC:Success on The Somme

What would have needed to happen for The Somme Offensive to have achieved it's objectives? Obviously not telling the troops that they would only need to have to walk across no man's land while weighed down with 50 pounds of equipment is a start, so would better targetting of artillery instead of thinking you could just blast the place to pieces. But what else would have needed to been done so that the British could take Bapaume in the quickest possible time with the fewest possible casualties? What would have been the ramifications of such a successful offensive have been or was the whole idea behind so hopelessly wrong?
 
IIRC the main problem was that the artillery bombardment couldn't take out the German bunkers and machine guns, so this is the point which is going to need to be addressed.

One wonders whether a sustained mass gas attack would have been any better, but would there have been the stockpiles to keep up such a bombardment of gas hour after hour?

And of course there's the problem that it might get blown back on your own lines...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
how early can the POD be? If its in 1916 its pretty much asb for them to crack the chalk flats of the somme and have a general advance without a blood bath

they could do better at the somme with 1916 POD's though (ie take more territory and have a more favorable body count, despite not having a super break through)

couple of POD's

1. The British decide it would be a good idea to conduct an indepth staff study of French and German tactics to the south and have squads of observers at verdun to pick up on the latest artillery trends and infantry tactics (ie not advancing with a pack weighing 20kg on your back through broken country when people are shooting at you)

2. The British narrow the assault sector considerably, and concentrate their most experienced units and ALL of their guns in a much smaller stretch (ideally side by side with Fayolle's troops) (this allows the offensive to be moved up some months so it can coincide with Verdun being more active

3. Upon hitting unbreakable resistance STOP

4. Do a neuve chappelle/verdun style hurricaine barrage (no weeklong attack to give away intention... 6-8 hours max then send the infantry out
 
Verdun not happening would probably be a good thing as this caused the French to committ less forces than was originally planned as well as move to the timetable up to help alleviate the pressure the French were under at Verdun. This battle is where the tank made its debut, if they had delayed the attack later its possible that the tank would have been used on the first day.
 
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