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re: Was there a battle in history bloodier than Stalingrad?
Posted on 10/4/15 at 9:26 pm to RollTide1987
Posted on 10/4/15 at 9:26 pm to RollTide1987
quote:
Depending on how you score it, the Battle of Stalingrad cost the Soviets and Germans a combined 2 million casualties. 95% of the city was destroyed and only 7,000 of the 91,000 Germans who were captured inside the city ever saw home again.
The only other battles that come close are either the Battle of Berlin (1945) or the Battle of Verdun (1916).
The Somme comes to mind right away. Of course, from a standpoint of bloodshed and human misery, there's a number of WWI battles that are at least comparable.
This post was edited on 10/4/15 at 9:31 pm
0
Posted on 10/4/15 at 9:30 pm to MaroonWhite
quote:
There were 23,000 casualties in the 1-day battle of Antietam.
Multiply that x3 and you get the British losses on the first day of the Somme. And that's not even counting the German or French losses. And that was just day 1 of a battle that lasted four months.
Posted on 10/4/15 at 9:44 pm to TigerDog83
quote:
The difference in the Somme versus Stalingrad was possibly civilian casualties. The whole eastern front World War Two was brutal but the Stalingrad campaign was extremely savage for any civilians trapped in the exchanges. Beevor's book was a good read.
From a standpoint of civilian suffering, Lenningrad had it worse during the siege the Germans laid on it in WWII. In Stalingrad, a good portion of the civilian population was actually evacuated. That didn't happen in Leningrad. They were trapped. And while the fighting for Leningrad was done outside the city itself, the suffering from starvation and disease, not to mention non-stop bombardment, inside thd city was terrible.
But even as bad as civilians had it in Leningrad or Stalingrad. The absolute worst suffering ever endured by a civilian population is without a doubt what the citizens of Nanking, China had to endure at the hands of the Japanese when that city fell in late 1937. I dare say, with the possible exception of some of the exploits of the Mongols, nothing in history can compare to the "Rape of Nanking".
Posted on 10/4/15 at 10:14 pm to RollTide1987
That's why there's no Putingrad. It just makes it more of a target.
Posted on 10/4/15 at 11:01 pm to BabyTac
quote:
D-Day? ...for more 'modern times
Sadly not a very deadly battle in the big scheme of things, Omaha beach was awful but the other beaches weren't as bad. Landing at Omaha would certainly have been one of the scariest experiences in military history though.
Overall, Stalingrad is up there with the worst. The horrors of the Eastern Front in WW2 are on such a massive scale that it's simply hard to wrap your brain around. Kursk may be the biggest battle the world will ever see in total scope until we are invaded by aliens.
In WW1 the aforementioned Somme was horrendous, but my vote for the worst battle in history could be Verdun because of the death, the constant artillery shelling, and the horrible mud. People would literally get sucked down in the mid like quicksand and killed in front of their comrades. There was feces everywhere mixed in the mud and combined with dead bodies. The smell must have been despicable. I believe half a million French soldiers were killed during this battle alone, it's not hard to see how by the end of WW1 they were so close to reaching their breaking point and didn't have much of a stomach for WW2.
Posted on 10/4/15 at 11:02 pm to BabyTac
Omaha beach is where the majority of the Anerican perception of D day comes from.....the entire invasion wasn't that bad.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 12:17 am to Darth_Vader
quote:
nothing in history can compare to the "Rape of Nanking".
Some of the stories are disgustingly barbaric
Posted on 10/5/15 at 12:39 am to RollTide1987
No, this is easily the worst battle in history.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 12:57 am to Napoleon
The Siege of Baghdad in the 13th century by the Mongols.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 8:05 am to RollTide1987
There have been quite a few bloody battles throughout history.
This post was edited on 10/5/15 at 8:08 am
Posted on 10/5/15 at 8:08 am to bulldog95
quote:That's odd.
When the Death Star destroyed alderran.
An entire planet gone in the blink of an eye.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
Gotcha!
This post was edited on 10/5/15 at 8:10 am
Posted on 10/5/15 at 8:12 am to RollTide1987
quote:
For a single day battle, it would be hard to find a bloodier one than the battle of Cannae
Battle of the Somme - July 1, 1916. 60,000 Brits fell in a single day.
Nothing comes close the 185,000 killed in one night in the battle of 2 Kings 19:35.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 8:16 am to Meauxjeaux
We'll never see another battle wear 10s of thousands die in a single day. A batallion of 1000 men carry the firepower and can cover the ground of 10000 men from WWI, 50000 from the Civil war. There's simply no reason to put that many troops on the battlefield at the same time these days.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 8:20 am to GeauxxxTigers23
quote:Insert Taylor Swift "OK" gif here.
We'll never see another battle wear 10s of thousands die in a single day.
Thermo-Nuclear war?
Hydrogen Bum?
Hundreds of thousands, millions can be quickly killed.
"Would you like to play a game?"
Posted on 10/5/15 at 8:21 am to soccerfüt
Okay, baring thermonuclear warfare, we'll never see another battle like that.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 8:42 am to DevinTheDude
quote:
n WW1 the aforementioned Somme was horrendous, but my vote for the worst battle in history could be Verdun because of the death, the constant artillery shelling, and the horrible mud. People would literally get sucked down in the mid like quicksand and killed in front of their comrades. There was feces everywhere mixed in the mud and combined with dead bodies. The smell must have been despicable. I believe half a million French soldiers were killed during this battle alone, it's not hard to see how by the end of WW1 they were so close to reaching their breaking point and didn't have much of a stomach for WW2.
The battle from WWI most known for mud like what you're describing was The Battle of Passchendaele, or as some call it, Third Battle of Ypres.
This battle was fought in Flanders where the water table is already very high. Add on top of that the fact the landscape was totally churned up and there were heavy rains and you get a nightmare battle that's hard to imagine.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 9:01 am to MaroonWhite
(no message)
This post was edited on 10/5/15 at 9:15 am
Posted on 10/5/15 at 11:03 am to Darth_Vader
quote:
In Stalingrad, a good portion of the civilian population was actually evacuated.
Stalin initially wanted the civilians to stay in the city, though, because he believed his soldiers would fight harder for a live city than they would a dead one. However, bombardment from German artillery as well as the Luftwaffe reduced 95% of the city to total ruin. The city was thus reluctantly evacuated because there was literally nowhere for civilians to take shelter from the battle.
Of the 2 million casualties suffered by both sides during the Battle of Stalingrad, only 40,000 of those were from the civilian population.
Posted on 10/5/15 at 11:08 am to BabyTac
quote:
D-Day? ...for more 'modern times'
D-Day is very much overrated in terms of bloodshed. Omaha Beach aside, the casualties for the invading Allies were actually comparatively light for a World War II engagement. The combined losses on that day (Allies and Germans) were less than 20,000.
And the Battle of Stalingrad was fought less than two years before D-Day.
This post was edited on 10/5/15 at 11:12 am
Posted on 10/5/15 at 11:11 am to RollTide1987
War is hell.
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