“Trench fighting is the bloodiest, wildest, most brutal of all ... Of all the war's exciting moments none is so powerful as the meeting of two storm troop leaders between narrow trench walls. There's no mercy there, no going back, the blood speaks from a shrill cry of recognition that tears itself from one's breast like a nightmare.” ― Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel
I know that there were all sorts of different reactions to WW1 combat among soldiers and that Jünger's wasn't uncommon but he always sounded like a bit of a psychopath to me
@@hrotha He sounds like a normal ww1 soldier for me. He fought in the stalemate the western front where the germans where fighting against all odds... Plus he shot an englishman on the penis on purpose
@@wolfgang6517 He shot an Englishman in the penis on purpose, but he was not a psychopath? It was thinking that type of thing was normal behaviour for a German soldier that didn't work out well in WWII.
As I understand it, many/most of the soldiers on the Western Front of WWI weren't like that at all. They would do their duty, but didn't really want to be there and/or kill anyone. This is what happens when you have to recruit something like your entire population of military aged males. Most of them really aren't cut out for a soldier's life. They are bakers and cobblers and miners who just want to go back home. But some are. Some revel in this environment. These are the guys that become your elite warriors, shock troopers and snipers, depending on their temprament. The men who hunt other men. And it's these guys the author is talking about here. The troop leaders of small units of trench raiders. When two groups like that run into each other then it's brutal. But it's also rare. In general you'd want to send a strong and aggressive group of trench raiders to hit a small section of enemy trenches which are (comparatively) undermanned and aren't expecting it. In war, you don't want to fight fair.
@@xJavelin1 from what I recall both sides especially the British lowerd the age of their soldiers that can be consripted and Germany where actively asking students in high school to go and fight. Both sides lost a lot of men fast whether to injury or death and those lost men needed to be replaced
@@Nooziterp1 Lets say a unit has 100 soldiers in it (for convenience sake) they have 14 dead on the first day of battle. These 14 are replaced like a week later, and then the entire unit gets slaughtered. A unit of 100 soldiers just suffered 114 casualties in a single battle.
Lol. I remember reading some of the British Indian regiments in Italy & North Africa finished WW2 with over 700% casualties. I thought it was a misprint intending to say 70% but upon further clarification, I found that it was accurate. They literally raised a regiment 7 times over with same number & regimental insignia from the same geographical area of India and fed them into battle over 5 years as the troops on the front took losses.
To correct- it depends on the military whether or not a light wound that is treated in field is counted as a casualty or not. Perhaps the French military did not, but the American and German militaries did (thus how the Purple Heart/Wound Badge could be awarded for even minor contusions or scrapes from shrapnel and spent bullets). The Austro-Hungarian military went so far as to count soldiers stricken with sickness/disease as casualties and count it towards their Wound Badge, considering it as an injury brought on by combat conditions (and thus explaining their high death/wound rate- that's including everything from frostbite to Spanish Flu losses), while other nations did not do so.
Unit: Loses over 90% of it's men Army: Replenishes the unit back to 100% strength Unit: loses over 75% of it's men Army: Replenishes the unit back to 100% strength ... Repeat ...
"A man who is killed in action will be counted as a casualty in the figures, becasue, well, he can't exactly fight if he is going to be 6 feet under the ground." Alucard: Hold my blood
The 'battles' of the first world war were more akin to entire campaigns in earlier wars. If you think of it in that sense, it numerical breakdown makes more sense. The Somme campaign, the Verdun campaign etc Units in previous armies might have suffered 100% casualties in a campaign, especially to sickness, but been kept at or near strength by reinforcements throughout .
The 1st Minnesota Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg suffered 82% casualties in just a few hours of fighting. I honestly doubt there's much that can top that.
"uhh it says here we got 300 dead" "anything else?" "well we got 2000 who sprained their ankle, more than a thousand sick, and the rest either have flesh wounds or severe injuries" "so that's everyone" "yeah"
That's a LOT of sprained ankles, that commander is gonna be going to his govt's department of supply to PERSONALLY complain about the horrible quality of the boots they issue!
The inniskilling fusiliers at Waterloo suffered 100% casualties, every man in the unit being wounded by cannon and musket fire but they still held their square til the end of the day
Really? How could they keep formation if everyone was a casualty? I might be missing something, but isnt a musketball so large and devastating that it was very rare (especially compared to modern soldiers) to take a musketball and keep standing and fighting?
@@doso4782 If it hit their chests, thighs or heads at point blank range, probably. However, round balls from smoothbore barrels, travelling at subsonic speeds don't have great performance at range due to things like a poor gas seal around the ball. People have been shot in the neck and still survived to walk himself to the surgeon, and write a book about it after receiving another more serious injury, so it is not a stretch to remain in action. We have also seen from the crew of Spiteful in the English armada that people could fight despite horrific injuries like having half their skull shot up
My great grandfather was injured four separate times in the Battle of Gallipoli alone, including losing one finger. He then went onto fight at the Somme and then Passchendaele in which he won a military medal for taking out a German machine gun nest. We have another casualty listing of his occurring in 1918 where he stepped on a stove and burnt his foot, a bit less heroic that one.
If I remember right, the US 29th Infantry Division suffered 100% casualties among enlisted men and 150% among officers during the invasion of Normandy and the breakout from the Bocage. The only reason I mention it is that was the first time I heard of casualty figures like that. The GIs liked to say that the commander of the 29th was really in command of three divisions: one in the field, one in the hospital, and one in the grave.
E Fig That’s the other thing that was crazy! An entirely unexperienced and green division that had it’s 116th regiment in the first wave at Omaha and overall had some of the toughest assignments that the leg infantry got in Normandy.
There's an interesting parallel to finance in this particular example. Just like how its simple to calculate a causality ratio from a single one day battle (casualties/initial strength), its similarly easy to calculate a single period return of an asset (gain/initial investment). When there's a series of cash inflows and cash outflows (compare with reinforcements and casualties) over an extended period, it no longer makes sense to calculate returns the same way. Therefore, hedge funds and private equity funds often calculate their returns not in terms of simple one-period percentages, but rather use a metric called IRR (internal rate of return). IRR is simply the percentage that would make the value of inflows equal to the value of outflows. It would be interesting to see if historians ever calculate casualty ratios using this method.
"Military Grade" means 'durable and hardened enough to be reliable and accepted by the military', and cost efficient enough for mass production. If your definition of "Military Grade" is cheap crap, that's not military grade, that's political corruption and brass incompetence.
@@DeNihilityNo It's not not a single Soldier will tell you their stuff is good, bad designed survival knifes rifles that go off when you just lay them down, and i even heard Rangers complain about their low ass stuff.
@@pimppimpproductions6497No it doesn't, you can't equip millions of Soldiers with high quality products while also keeping the costs low enough to buy more vehicles like tanks and aircraft and keep logistics going, doesn't matter if US, Russia or France they all get bad stuff to be able to form a big military if need be.
@@tiagomonteiro130 your assumption is flawed because costs are not kept “low” in many of those militaries, there is a certain point where low quality is actually more costly in the long term than high quality due to things such as maintenance or logistical problems due to equipment diversity. As such, many militaries do use high grade equipment because that equipment does not need to be replaced as often or performs better in combat, lowering casualties and thus saving the military the cost of training new troops. Hence why it depends on the military
“An entire army of Pope Formosus” Hmmmmm.... Formosus charging at the Kaiserriech with holy water: A B C D E F G. Somebody shoulda told you not to fortnicate with me....
Unfortunately, a staggering number of French regiments were "detruit et reconstitue" destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. There are cenotaph to French casualties in all 36000 town and villages of France but one. My great grandmother was quick to say to her husband's face that she married him because he was the only one to come back.
There’s a also a point of a battalion would not commit all their companies, for example if A (Left Flank) B (Centre) C (Right Flank) D would be held in reserve and not committed to the fight with that the HQ company, Or another example in Brigade there are 4 battalions, 3 would go forward with the 4th acting as reserve as a mop up crew or Leapfrog one battalion attacking or reinforce them, but when not needed they repair Wire, Trenches, fill sandbags and bring ammunition, But what I find interesting casualties are calculated after the battle or the tour (5 weeks in the front) then 2 weeks in the billets doing jobs as mentioned like repairs and do studio photos.
And the tactic of the future, if 25 star general Zap Brannigan is anything to by. There's never a problem that can't be solved by sending wave after wave of men to die😋😱
Imagine if half a platoon of 40 men died in one week. Most people would think 20 people in a medium sized room is a crowd, now imagine a week later that entire crowd of 20 people are gone forever, they’re either dead or seriously maimed. Now imagine this goes on for 4 years.
Don't forget the PTSD-related deaths of soldiers years after the wars end. For instance, my father's step father was a WW I soldier who had a violent breakdown in 1928 (quite possibly war-related) and he was shot dead by police.
17:49 And the battle has begin Nowhere to run, father and son Fall one by one under the gone Thy will be done (thy will be done), and the judgement has begun Nowhere to run, father and son Fall one by one, fields of Verdun
Actually, the casualties were similar for combat units in both World Wars. What differed was the kind of war each was. WWI was a Static War of Attrition, WWII was a maneuver War of Attrition. Both, were wars of attrition. The real difference is that by the late 1930's technological advancement was such that a trench deadlock could be (mostly) avoided. But make no mistake, the casualties in the combat units were just as horrific, just as high in WWII as they were in WWI....
Something about the 'turnover' rate of RAF bombers crews might help here. 7 to 8 crew per bomber, 12 to 16 bombers per squadron, up to 1300 bombers in all the force later in the war. From the beginning of the war to start of 1942, almost 100% turnover. The few men who had survived and remained in the RAF were considered 'old lags' (men who had been in prison a long time). Loss rate was about 2 - 3% per mission. Rising as high as 8 to 10% a mission at times. During 1943, the expansion of the force meant that there were over three times as many squadrons. There was another over 100% turnover, including Guy Gibson, who was the only surviving pilot of his first squadron, survived a tour on night fighters, survived a full tour of 30 missions as commander of 106 squadron, survived the Dams mission, was killed shortly after he went back to operational flying. All the time the loss rate varied from 3 to 10% as before. In 1944 the loss rate could peak at 15% for some missions (Nuremberg is one). The move to daylight missions in support of the Normandy landings reduced the loss rate, but early in 1945 the loss rate increased again. With men moving to build new squadrons , taking time off between tours to train other crews, time in hospital and for some, escaping captivity and returning to operations resulted in a 300% turnover of crewmen in most squadrons during the war. By far the largest part of the turnover was newly-trained men replacing dead men. Another example would be the units fighting in the Huertgen Forest.
3:32 During the first world war, dead soldiers were extremely lucky If they were « 6 feet under the ground ». At best they would found themselves in a shallow grave behind the line, rotting on the battlefield or just buried by artillery fire in an unmarked area forever…
Or unlucky enough to have been going over the top, in a place that got arty'd and heavily rained, and getting swallowed whole by the mud; the mud/dirt got displaced by the arty, and got quicksand-like properties by the rain.
@@Pumpkin42O I image it would of been funny based on Army sense of humor. From what I was told about this battle, it wasn't even a battle in the traditional terms, it's more like the Army stormed a village that had a garrison and the garrison returned fire and then surrendered when they saw the grunts had vehicles with them.
This is one reason why I'm proud to be a Minnesotan. The Minnesota First had a storied history in the Civil War, including their charge at Gettysburg where they suffered 50% casualties. One of my favorite high school memories is visiting the Capitol in St. Paul where they store a ton of artifacts from Minnesota regiments during Civil War
Its actually very disturbing to think that if a regiment had 50 or 75% casualties, that doesn't include people who were injured but managed to stay on the field. so potentially an entire regiment could possible be killed, seriously injured, or the very least minor injured and still fighting in a ww1 battle.
My Grandfather was at the Somme, records lost during WW2, hels at Somerset House, which was bombed. He was gassed. Obviously survived. Was Leicestershire Yeomanry.
@@GeraltofRivia22 We're actually pretty good at killing terrorists. In fact, civillians constitute only about 20% of casualties in the War in Afghanistan. The ANA, NATO Coalition and mercenary contractors have actually lost more people than the Afghan civillians - around twice as many.
@@wisemankugelmemicus1701 unfortunately the US intelligence services have a tendency of declaring anyone killed in drone strikes or through collateral damage a terrorist after the fact. There was an infamous example of this when a wedding was hit by a strike and the CIA stated that only terrorists were present, despite the fact that there were children and that no evidence exists that either the bride or her family were part of a terrorist organisation. So those numbers may not be as trustworthy as we would all like
volodymyrboitchouk a very rare scenario. In reality, the majority of drone strikes killed combatants. The Pakistani ISI estimates that 97% of those killed in US drone strikes from 2008-2011 were combatants. Edit: in Pakistan.
As an officer during my national service I served in a regiment that had been destroyed several times during WW1. I suppose in terms of statistics and percentage, this would account for several times 100% casualty rates indeed. The death toll for WW1 was 41 officers (including 2 COs), 73 NCOS and 986 other ranks. These figures are to be compared with the notional strength in August 1914 when the fighting began: 25 officers, 102 NCOs and 1633 other ranks. And, by definition, the death toll excludes MIAs, WIAs (temporarily or definitively out of action) and POWs who eventually returned - although all these cases would have been included in the casualty figures computed at the time in action reports. The regiment fought from August 1914 to November 1918, apart of course from the periods it had to be rebuilt. This all earned it various collective decorations, including the Legion d’Honneur - yes, I am talking French army here.
The technology of WW1 vs. the "tactics of the 1890's" were the reasons for such high casualties. The 1890's bayonet charge of a gaggle of men with flashy pointy things coming at you, disturbed you naught, when you had machine guns that could wipe them out beyond pointy thing range.
Honestly even if tactics has been better odds are casualty rates would still be very high. When you've got two opponents with similar equipment training and numbers there's no way you're gonna fight the war cheaply. Probably the best evidence for this is autumn 1918 when the Allies finally started applying the lessons of war. Average daily deaths on the Western Front for the Entente from september to november were at close to 3000. This despite the fact that these were mostly battle hardened veterans facing off against larger and larger numbers of raw german conscripts. If combat had lasted into 1919 odds are the Entente would have run out of steam in its offensive. The kind of losses sustained at the end when they supposedly learned to fight were not sustainable for long.
My home town had under 1,000 occupants in 1860 but somehow managed to supply 100 men composing company I of the 12 Michigan volunteers in 1861-62. That's 10% of the town's total workforce and only constitutes a single regiment and a single call for volunteers.
in anycase a unit that loses 100% of it's number is basically a unit that has alot of wounded or taken prisoner along with the dead. but mostlly wounded men from the regiments that suffer that high rate will come back but at leas the regiment will be there etc.
If you look at the casualty rates of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that went into mainland Europe in August 1914, by December of that year the numbers exceeded 100% casualties. During those months the forces were backfllled with "reservists" (men who had served in the past, called back into the army without training and commited to combat within weeks) and Indian army units. However, the regular British army ceased to exist in the first month's of the war.
And that's how we got tradition of avoiding knowing names of "the new guy" before first firefighter "new guys" got thrown in. There was a time when German army was using "replacement battalions" and also giving caught deserters a chance to "restore their honour" by serving in those units. In wasn't voluntary, unless one got himself additional criminal charges his imprisonment for desertion was merely changed to "in a week you going to replacement battalion number so and so". Also, replacement battalion (according to memoirs I read) was distributed piecemeal along units that were lacking manpower. I don't know whether it meant that division was getting replacement battalion to fill its regiments ranks or whether army was getting replacement battalions that were divided as army saw it fit.
Im currently watching your Assassins Creed Series, and it's ... veeery enjoyable to see someone rant about a games uniforms and historicism, about which i didn't know i'd care so much! But if you want a game set in the Revolutionary war with good uniforms to check out, give Prime & Load: 1776 a run. I would love to have you go through the regiments and accuracy!
Very good explanation. There is an excellent historical book about Hitlery Regiment in WWI from Thomas Weber "Hitlers First War" (2010) The 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment Casultie List about the war was 3754 KIA, 8795 WIA and 678 MIA for a total 13277 casualties during the war. The original strenght of an infantry regiment was ca. 3000 men. Therefore you could say the 16th Bavarian RIR was wipped out more than four times but Thomas Weber pointed out that it was impossible for him to find an accurate number of how many men really served in the Regiment. Hitler himself is counted several times in this numbers because he was wounded at least two times and sent back to hospital. The 16th Bavarian RIR was an average Regiment, it casulty numbers were very comparable to most other German Regiment. The low Number of Missing and Captured Soldiers was also comparable to other Regiment which were used only on the Western Front during the entire war. Anyway this were horrific casulty rates by any means.
The Dirlewanger Brigade had a 315% casualty rate in the Warsaw Uprising (WWII). The man himself was brutal and ordered the death of 500-ish Polish children too. Wouldn't even use bullets so the men had to use their buttstocks.
First time I heard about it was an interview with a guy who was part of reconnaissance unit during the Vietnam War. He said they'd get wounded, but go straight back when they'd recover from their injuries.
.. Because Russians didnt have such intense, stale-mate, fortified battles in WW1? Battles on the eastern front were more similar to normal battles of maneveur, encircling, routing enemy troops etc. not sending them to the fields constantly bombarded by artilery since fhe last week
A number of the US divisions that landed in France in 1944 had well over 100% casualties by the end of the war. This was a combination of heavy casualties and the arrival of replacements. The divisions still existed but were to all intents and purposes new ones. Huge casualties in a single engagement were possible. On the first day of the Somme in 1916 many British battalions had well over 50% casualties and for example the 1st Hampshires was so shot up that only a brief note in the battalion diary was possible - casualties were 100% among officers and very heavy among enlisted men, it said. It was as though so many were killed and wounded that reporting in detail what happened was impossible.
I have written a computer program here. I am working with a battalion of 1000 soldiers fighting five actions, taking 40% casaulties. At the end of each action, the casualties are replaced with recruits. According to my analysis, the battalion will take around 2000 casualties and something like 60 to 90 of the original soldiers will survive. That is 200% casualties, with a significant survival rate. If I change the scenario to 40 actions at 5% casualties, we get 2000 casualties again, but this time, there will be around 130 survivors. We still have 200% casualties, but we have more than 10% of the original troops surviving.
The only way to tell how effective such a 9 month battle was you would have to figure, how many bodies were thrown at the field in total versus how many left the field over the entire period of the battle.
I'm sure there were some units that by the end of the battle were consisting entirely of new recruits, with absolutely all of the original soldiers in that unit that saw the start of the battle dead.
One of the things that made Verdun so brutal was that cycles for regiments weren't used. If a regiment got depleted and you survived, then your regiment was just replenished and you'd be set to fight there again. You weren't pulled out.
Well made video, as always, Brandon! Since the Battle of Verdun is my greatest area of interest I was glad to see you make a video related to it. And as always you have a very sobering way of looking and explaining the subject! Verdun was perticularly nasty since the majority of the battle was fought on a rather small and limited geographical space with such a large concentration of artillery shelling it more or less constantly. The stories from those who fought there, both French and German, are a horrific testimony to the slaughter at Verdun. And to the amount of mangled and rotten dead bodies and body parts that not only littered but impregnated the very ground that was fought over. That along withscreams and moans of wounded men who could not be saved due to th constant shelling. The putrid stench of death mixed with that of powder, gas, piss and shit that the poor bastereds who fought there had to live amongst usually without sleep and with little to no food or water other than what they had been able to carry with them selfes when they came up to the front. Forced to live in filthy shellholes or the remnants of destroyed trenches. It was hell on earth!
In a similar way, some U-boats were sunk by enemy action twice. For instance, U31 was sunk in an air raid in March 1940, salvaged, repaired, recommissioned in July 1940 and sunk again north-west of Ireland in November 1940 by HMS Antelope. The whole crew was killed in the first sinking, but only two were killed in the second sinking. (data from www.uboat.net/boats/u31.htm).
TLDR- Unit takes causalities and receives reinforcements, a casualty rate of over 114% basically means 100% of the units original strength became causalities and when replaced 14% of said replacements became casualties. If you think that is bad, The 3rd Infantry Division, U.S army was in combat for a consecutive 531 days during world war 2, taking a total of 26,000 Casualties, bringing the casualty rate up to between 150 - 300%.
I've always been obsessed by the First World War. And the battles and horrific casualties Both of my grandfathers fought in France and both survived. One was a British machine gunner and was wounded in the hand. But other than that I don't know anything about them
In WW1 it was quite common though not universal for a British battalion to not send everyone over the top - perhaps 100-150 would stay behind while 700-900 attacked. If the attack succeeded they would follow later. If it failed, they were the cadre around which a new battalion was formed, together with any survivors of the attack.
I have heard that some bomber wings (squadrons?) in WW2 had 700% casualties. And relatively few of these were wounded men who returned to service. Most were KIA, or captured.
28th division US Marines Iwo Jima I seem to recall I may be wrong but went into battle with 10,000 men it received I belive some 19,000 replacements in just over 30 days now that is 20,000+ casultys!!!
“Trench fighting is the bloodiest, wildest, most brutal of all ... Of all the war's exciting moments none is so powerful as the meeting of two storm troop leaders between narrow trench walls. There's no mercy there, no going back, the blood speaks from a shrill cry of recognition that tears itself from one's breast like a nightmare.”
― Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel
I know that there were all sorts of different reactions to WW1 combat among soldiers and that Jünger's wasn't uncommon but he always sounded like a bit of a psychopath to me
@@hrotha He sounds like a normal ww1 soldier for me. He fought in the stalemate the western front where the germans where fighting against all odds... Plus he shot an englishman on the penis on purpose
@@wolfgang6517 He shot an Englishman in the penis on purpose, but he was not a psychopath? It was thinking that type of thing was normal behaviour for a German soldier that didn't work out well in WWII.
As I understand it, many/most of the soldiers on the Western Front of WWI weren't like that at all. They would do their duty, but didn't really want to be there and/or kill anyone. This is what happens when you have to recruit something like your entire population of military aged males. Most of them really aren't cut out for a soldier's life. They are bakers and cobblers and miners who just want to go back home.
But some are. Some revel in this environment. These are the guys that become your elite warriors, shock troopers and snipers, depending on their temprament. The men who hunt other men. And it's these guys the author is talking about here. The troop leaders of small units of trench raiders. When two groups like that run into each other then it's brutal. But it's also rare. In general you'd want to send a strong and aggressive group of trench raiders to hit a small section of enemy trenches which are (comparatively) undermanned and aren't expecting it. In war, you don't want to fight fair.
@@xJavelin1 from what I recall both sides especially the British lowerd the age of their soldiers that can be consripted and Germany where actively asking students in high school to go and fight. Both sides lost a lot of men fast whether to injury or death and those lost men needed to be replaced
When your army so good that you kill a 114% of the enemy
That means that for every 100 enemy soldiers you kill 114 of them. How does that work?
@@Nooziterp1
Lets say a unit has 100 soldiers in it (for convenience sake) they have 14 dead on the first day of battle. These 14 are replaced like a week later, and then the entire unit gets slaughtered.
A unit of 100 soldiers just suffered 114 casualties in a single battle.
@@jorenvanderark3567 I didn't think of it that way.
@@jorenvanderark3567 Makes sense.
@@jorenvanderark3567 yikes
*Regiment* charge up the hill!
*The regiment* regiment, sir?
*Commander* : ah... 3 MEN AND MY DOG, CHARGE!
URAHHHHHH!
*Your bed was moved or obstructed*
@PandaKashiJonin Sure, russian up the hill to get there before anyone else.
Lol. I remember reading some of the British Indian regiments in Italy & North Africa finished WW2 with over 700% casualties. I thought it was a misprint intending to say 70% but upon further clarification, I found that it was accurate.
They literally raised a regiment 7 times over with same number & regimental insignia from the same geographical area of India and fed them into battle over 5 years as the troops on the front took losses.
that moment you know, you fucked up
Remember that a wounded soldier counted as a "casualty" could (and most of time did) go back to the front.
*Happy Death Korps of Krieg noises*
Get your shovel brother, we got a heretic to burn.
Could you please do a video on the siege of Benin
In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only Farb.
@Dr Kermit the frog Jone the battle will fall down to a one v one... We must train our flag bearer to beat him...
@Dr Kermit the frog Jone and officer to increase accuracy buff
To correct- it depends on the military whether or not a light wound that is treated in field is counted as a casualty or not. Perhaps the French military did not, but the American and German militaries did (thus how the Purple Heart/Wound Badge could be awarded for even minor contusions or scrapes from shrapnel and spent bullets). The Austro-Hungarian military went so far as to count soldiers stricken with sickness/disease as casualties and count it towards their Wound Badge, considering it as an injury brought on by combat conditions (and thus explaining their high death/wound rate- that's including everything from frostbite to Spanish Flu losses), while other nations did not do so.
Unit: Loses over 90% of it's men
Army: Replenishes the unit back to 100% strength
Unit: loses over 75% of it's men
Army: Replenishes the unit back to 100% strength
... Repeat ...
and rinse
The Death Korps of Krieg approves this message.
Marines: Puts individuals on report who did not die at the position of attention.
@@dragonsbreath1984 Marines are a cult
@@Tezunegari damn right.
I'm waitning for the day when you start wearing beige.
Really I prefer black or white...brown is a bit too exotic for me, and I don't think I can pull off beige or khaki unless it's with a pith helmet.
@@BrandonF In case you didn't catch it, he was likening you to Lindybeige. Which I can agree with
@@JohnsonTheSecond nobody missed that
@@unstoppabletigertalukan6710 Indeed.
@@BrandonF Why don't you change your name BrandonBlackandWhite?
ARgh its horrible....
"A man who is killed in action will be counted as a casualty in the figures, becasue, well, he can't exactly fight if he is going to be 6 feet under the ground."
Alucard: Hold my blood
It's free real estate.
"HEY KIDS, WANNA SEE A DEAD BODY?"
Also, I can easily hear him saying, "I AM 101 percent casualties!"
Gas Cloud: Laughs in Russian
The 'battles' of the first world war were more akin to entire campaigns in earlier wars.
If you think of it in that sense, it numerical breakdown makes more sense. The Somme campaign, the Verdun campaign etc
Units in previous armies might have suffered 100% casualties in a campaign, especially to sickness, but been kept at or near strength by reinforcements throughout .
The 1st Minnesota Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg suffered 82% casualties in just a few hours of fighting. I honestly doubt there's much that can top that.
"uhh it says here we got 300 dead"
"anything else?"
"well we got 2000 who sprained their ankle, more than a thousand sick, and the rest either have flesh wounds or severe injuries"
"so that's everyone"
"yeah"
That's a LOT of sprained ankles, that commander is gonna be going to his govt's department of supply to PERSONALLY complain about the horrible quality of the boots they issue!
The inniskilling fusiliers at Waterloo suffered 100% casualties, every man in the unit being wounded by cannon and musket fire but they still held their square til the end of the day
Really? How could they keep formation if everyone was a casualty? I might be missing something, but isnt a musketball so large and devastating that it was very rare (especially compared to modern soldiers) to take a musketball and keep standing and fighting?
@@doso4782 If it hit their chests, thighs or heads at point blank range, probably. However, round balls from smoothbore barrels, travelling at subsonic speeds don't have great performance at range due to things like a poor gas seal around the ball. People have been shot in the neck and still survived to walk himself to the surgeon, and write a book about it after receiving another more serious injury, so it is not a stretch to remain in action. We have also seen from the crew of Spiteful in the English armada that people could fight despite horrific injuries like having half their skull shot up
"I hate being replacements, it means whoever was fighting there need replacing" - movie I dont remember the name of.
My great grandfather was injured four separate times in the Battle of Gallipoli alone, including losing one finger. As an example of this happening
🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿👍
“He can’t fight if he is going to be underground”
*laughs in sapper*
*laughs in vietinamese*
*laughs in swiss bunker complex*
Jk, I got what you meant
Imagine making a joke while spell Vietnamese wrong 🤣😂
@@Suicide_is_cute doesn't it have the "i" in english? well than, sorry for my misspelling;
*laughs in vietnamese* *
@@Suicide_is_cute you ok there bud?
@@Suicide_is_cute what is wrong with you man
@@Suicide_is_cute imagine all the poeple
"Geneva convension? More like Geneva suggestions."
@Alexandru B You used quotation and I’m not complaining
More like guidelines than actual rules...WELCOME TO THE FRENCH ARMY MISSY!
*Imperial Japan noises intsenfies*
germany in ww2 could have won with gas and being nastier so watch what you say, there is an alternate reality waiting
@@adamant7794 we are talkin ww1 here buddy, where all sides used gas weaponry to little advantage.
I recently finished reading "With The Old Breed". K 3/5 suffered something like 260% casualties though the campaigns from Pelilu to Okinawa.
“A dead man can’t fight”
*Attack of dead men noises*
Osowiec then and again
Facing the lead once again
Osowiec then and again
Attack of the dead, hundred men
Facing the lead once again
Hundred men
Charge again
Die again
Exactly what I was thinking.
My great grandfather was injured four separate times in the Battle of Gallipoli alone, including losing one finger. He then went onto fight at the Somme and then Passchendaele in which he won a military medal for taking out a German machine gun nest. We have another casualty listing of his occurring in 1918 where he stepped on a stove and burnt his foot, a bit less heroic that one.
"How many people were casualties at the Battle of Verdun?"
"Which one?"
I love good historians like this gentleman. I appreciate the amazing content sir. From a Texas man.
Brandon: do they dig up old bodies and throw them at the enemy or something?
*ATTACK OF THE DEAD MEN NOISES INTENSIFIES*
"And that's when the dead men are marching again"
If I remember right, the US 29th Infantry Division suffered 100% casualties among enlisted men and 150% among officers during the invasion of Normandy and the breakout from the Bocage. The only reason I mention it is that was the first time I heard of casualty figures like that.
The GIs liked to say that the commander of the 29th was really in command of three divisions: one in the field, one in the hospital, and one in the grave.
E Fig That’s the other thing that was crazy! An entirely unexperienced and green division that had it’s 116th regiment in the first wave at Omaha and overall had some of the toughest assignments that the leg infantry got in Normandy.
There's an interesting parallel to finance in this particular example. Just like how its simple to calculate a causality ratio from a single one day battle (casualties/initial strength), its similarly easy to calculate a single period return of an asset (gain/initial investment). When there's a series of cash inflows and cash outflows (compare with reinforcements and casualties) over an extended period, it no longer makes sense to calculate returns the same way.
Therefore, hedge funds and private equity funds often calculate their returns not in terms of simple one-period percentages, but rather use a metric called IRR (internal rate of return). IRR is simply the percentage that would make the value of inflows equal to the value of outflows. It would be interesting to see if historians ever calculate casualty ratios using this method.
Excellent video again Brandon F. We are very lucky to have you. Few reenactors have the same level of knowledge and passion as you.
Thank you!
Bored at 3 AM and then Brandon swoops in like superman ❤️
In my country it is 12.00 midday when you potsted that comment lol
5 AM for me hahah
Eagle Guy I used to want to join the 82nd
"Military grade" means second hand (or more like twentieth), made with the cheapest materials and the lowest bid.
Depends on the military
"Military Grade" means 'durable and hardened enough to be reliable and accepted by the military', and cost efficient enough for mass production. If your definition of "Military Grade" is cheap crap, that's not military grade, that's political corruption and brass incompetence.
@@DeNihilityNo It's not not a single Soldier will tell you their stuff is good, bad designed survival knifes rifles that go off when you just lay them down, and i even heard Rangers complain about their low ass stuff.
@@pimppimpproductions6497No it doesn't, you can't equip millions of Soldiers with high quality products while also keeping the costs low enough to buy more vehicles like tanks and aircraft and keep logistics going, doesn't matter if US, Russia or France they all get bad stuff to be able to form a big military if need be.
@@tiagomonteiro130 your assumption is flawed because costs are not kept “low” in many of those militaries, there is a certain point where low quality is actually more costly in the long term than high quality due to things such as maintenance or logistical problems due to equipment diversity. As such, many militaries do use high grade equipment because that equipment does not need to be replaced as often or performs better in combat, lowering casualties and thus saving the military the cost of training new troops. Hence why it depends on the military
“An entire army of Pope Formosus”
Hmmmmm....
Formosus charging at the Kaiserriech with holy water:
A B C D E F G. Somebody shoulda told you not to fortnicate with me....
FormoSUS ahahahahaha funny amogus 69420 big chungus ultra instinct Shaggy Keanu Reeves wholesome 100
Unfortunately, a staggering number of French regiments were "detruit et reconstitue" destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. There are cenotaph to French casualties in all 36000 town and villages of France but one. My great grandmother was quick to say to her husband's face that she married him because he was the only one to come back.
Détruits et reconstitués* But that's not even military slang, just two verbs
"why does it say here that we lost 100% of everyone"
"they all have diarrhea from the food rations"
There’s a also a point of a battalion would not commit all their companies, for example if A (Left Flank) B (Centre) C (Right Flank) D would be held in reserve and not committed to the fight with that the HQ company,
Or another example in Brigade there are 4 battalions, 3 would go forward with the 4th acting as reserve as a mop up crew or Leapfrog one battalion attacking or reinforce them, but when not needed they repair Wire, Trenches, fill sandbags and bring ammunition,
But what I find interesting casualties are calculated after the battle or the tour (5 weeks in the front) then 2 weeks in the billets doing jobs as mentioned like repairs and do studio photos.
Ah yes, the old military tactic of just having more men then the enemy has bullets.
these likes appeal to my ego
Technically not that old, since bullets are actually a pretty recent invention in human history.
And the tactic of the future, if 25 star general Zap Brannigan is anything to by. There's never a problem that can't be solved by sending wave after wave of men to die😋😱
@@marinerproductions1315 you know what i mean :)
@@Grauenwolf that’s why guns and bullets replaced bows and arrows
Brandon F: Conquering a mountain range rather than vast swaths of France.
Me: but the latter is much more profitable and fun than the former.
Yet they invaded Italy 2 years ahead of France...
Imagine if half a platoon of 40 men died in one week. Most people would think 20 people in a medium sized room is a crowd, now imagine a week later that entire crowd of 20 people are gone forever, they’re either dead or seriously maimed. Now imagine this goes on for 4 years.
Don't forget the PTSD-related deaths of soldiers years after the wars end. For instance, my father's step father was a WW I soldier who had a violent breakdown in 1928 (quite possibly war-related) and he was shot dead by police.
17:49 And the battle has begin
Nowhere to run, father and son
Fall one by one under the gone
Thy will be done (thy will be done), and the judgement has begun
Nowhere to run, father and son
Fall one by one, fields of Verdun
The casualties of WW1 were truly horrendous
Actually, the casualties were similar for combat units in both World Wars. What differed was the kind of war each was. WWI was a Static War of Attrition, WWII was a maneuver War of Attrition. Both, were wars of attrition. The real difference is that by the late 1930's technological advancement was such that a trench deadlock could be (mostly) avoided.
But make no mistake, the casualties in the combat units were just as horrific, just as high in WWII as they were in WWI....
That one surgeon with a %200 casualty rate on a single sergery be like: First time? Wow, I wish I could have served for the military back then. lol
300%, and he came before
@@mathieushifera135 thanks for correcting my memory.
Something about the 'turnover' rate of RAF bombers crews might help here.
7 to 8 crew per bomber, 12 to 16 bombers per squadron, up to 1300 bombers in all the force later in the war.
From the beginning of the war to start of 1942, almost 100% turnover.
The few men who had survived and remained in the RAF were considered 'old lags' (men who had been in prison a long time).
Loss rate was about 2 - 3% per mission. Rising as high as 8 to 10% a mission at times.
During 1943, the expansion of the force meant that there were over three times as many squadrons.
There was another over 100% turnover, including Guy Gibson, who was the only surviving pilot of his first squadron, survived a tour on night fighters, survived a full tour of 30 missions as commander of 106 squadron, survived the Dams mission, was killed shortly after he went back to operational flying.
All the time the loss rate varied from 3 to 10% as before.
In 1944 the loss rate could peak at 15% for some missions (Nuremberg is one).
The move to daylight missions in support of the Normandy landings reduced the loss rate, but early in 1945 the loss rate increased again.
With men moving to build new squadrons , taking time off between tours to train other crews, time in hospital and for some, escaping captivity and returning to operations resulted in a 300% turnover of crewmen in most squadrons during the war.
By far the largest part of the turnover was newly-trained men replacing dead men.
Another example would be the units fighting in the Huertgen Forest.
I love your channel keep up the great stuff
3:32 During the first world war, dead soldiers were extremely lucky If they were « 6 feet under the ground ». At best they would found themselves in a shallow grave behind the line, rotting on the battlefield or just buried by artillery fire in an unmarked area forever…
Or unlucky enough to have been going over the top, in a place that got arty'd and heavily rained, and getting swallowed whole by the mud; the mud/dirt got displaced by the arty, and got quicksand-like properties by the rain.
I wonder what it would be like if going into a battle had 1% Casualty rating
When the USA was preparing for the Invasion of Iraq they got more casualties than in the actual invasion.
There is a battle in Iraq where the only US casuality was a soldier who tripped over a fence and broke his ankle. That battle was less than 1%
@@Seriona1 imagine being that soldier
@@Pumpkin42O I image it would of been funny based on Army sense of humor. From what I was told about this battle, it wasn't even a battle in the traditional terms, it's more like the Army stormed a village that had a garrison and the garrison returned fire and then surrendered when they saw the grunts had vehicles with them.
@@Seriona1 Knowing some Ex-Servicemen in my family yeah it was probably hilarious...
This is one reason why I'm proud to be a Minnesotan. The Minnesota First had a storied history in the Civil War, including their charge at Gettysburg where they suffered 50% casualties. One of my favorite high school memories is visiting the Capitol in St. Paul where they store a ton of artifacts from Minnesota regiments during Civil War
Great video as always. Keep up the good work. I can appreciate the context you set for these historical videos which bring many things to life.
Its actually very disturbing to think that if a regiment had 50 or 75% casualties, that doesn't include people who were injured but managed to stay on the field. so potentially an entire regiment could possible be killed, seriously injured, or the very least minor injured and still fighting in a ww1 battle.
Seeing that Heidegger book behind him be givin me flashbacks to all that assigned reading. OOOF.
Remember kids. Military grade means: Cheapest possible option that just barely works.
My Grandfather was at the Somme, records lost during WW2, hels at Somerset House, which was bombed. He was gassed. Obviously survived. Was Leicestershire Yeomanry.
Not too obvious. He could have been 25 with a pregnant wife during the attack.
it was said (admittedly by me) that the Great War caused the statistician almost as much mental anguish as the frontline solder.
That moment you take 114% Casualties, and then are ordered back to the front. "Reserves please?"
Over 100% causlties sound like the next name for a US operation in the Middle East
As long as those casualties are civilians
Congrats on 100 subs!
@@GeraltofRivia22 We're actually pretty good at killing terrorists. In fact, civillians constitute only about 20% of casualties in the War in Afghanistan. The ANA, NATO Coalition and mercenary contractors have actually lost more people than the Afghan civillians - around twice as many.
@@wisemankugelmemicus1701 unfortunately the US intelligence services have a tendency of declaring anyone killed in drone strikes or through collateral damage a terrorist after the fact. There was an infamous example of this when a wedding was hit by a strike and the CIA stated that only terrorists were present, despite the fact that there were children and that no evidence exists that either the bride or her family were part of a terrorist organisation. So those numbers may not be as trustworthy as we would all like
volodymyrboitchouk a very rare scenario. In reality, the majority of drone strikes killed combatants. The Pakistani ISI estimates that 97% of those killed in US drone strikes from 2008-2011 were combatants.
Edit: in Pakistan.
I've seen Osprey books claim >500% casualties for some American units that served from D-Day to VE Day in WWII.
Thanks for the complex topic. Not sure if it will be popular, but it was quite interesting.
As an officer during my national service I served in a regiment that had been destroyed several times during WW1. I suppose in terms of statistics and percentage, this would account for several times 100% casualty rates indeed.
The death toll for WW1 was 41 officers (including 2 COs), 73 NCOS and 986 other ranks. These figures are to be compared with the notional strength in August 1914 when the fighting began: 25 officers, 102 NCOs and 1633 other ranks. And, by definition, the death toll excludes MIAs, WIAs (temporarily or definitively out of action) and POWs who eventually returned - although all these cases would have been included in the casualty figures computed at the time in action reports.
The regiment fought from August 1914 to November 1918, apart of course from the periods it had to be rebuilt. This all earned it various collective decorations, including the Legion d’Honneur - yes, I am talking French army here.
What happened here ? Why do we have 100% casualties on our regiment? General ! Explain now !
***General Start Singing Fields of Verdun***
Professional and well spoken. Hell yeah brotha!!
Makes sense to me. I'm sure that's why casualties went up when they started up the the helmets. Men who didn't die died twice.
The technology of WW1 vs. the "tactics of the 1890's" were the reasons for such high casualties.
The 1890's bayonet charge of a gaggle of men with flashy pointy things coming at you, disturbed you naught, when you had machine guns that could wipe them out beyond pointy thing range.
Honestly even if tactics has been better odds are casualty rates would still be very high. When you've got two opponents with similar equipment training and numbers there's no way you're gonna fight the war cheaply. Probably the best evidence for this is autumn 1918 when the Allies finally started applying the lessons of war. Average daily deaths on the Western Front for the Entente from september to november were at close to 3000. This despite the fact that these were mostly battle hardened veterans facing off against larger and larger numbers of raw german conscripts. If combat had lasted into 1919 odds are the Entente would have run out of steam in its offensive. The kind of losses sustained at the end when they supposedly learned to fight were not sustainable for long.
Finally a history video in Brandon F. Huzzah!!!!
My home town had under 1,000 occupants in 1860 but somehow managed to supply 100 men composing company I of the 12 Michigan volunteers in 1861-62. That's 10% of the town's total workforce and only constitutes a single regiment and a single call for volunteers.
Oskar Dirlewanger be like: *Hold my beer*
in anycase a unit that loses 100% of it's number is basically a unit that has alot of wounded or taken prisoner along with the dead. but mostlly wounded men from the regiments that suffer that high rate will come back but at leas the regiment will be there etc.
If you look at the casualty rates of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that went into mainland Europe in August 1914, by December of that year the numbers exceeded 100% casualties. During those months the forces were backfllled with "reservists" (men who had served in the past, called back into the army without training and commited to combat within weeks) and Indian army units. However, the regular British army ceased to exist in the first month's of the war.
And that's how we got tradition of avoiding knowing names of "the new guy" before first firefighter "new guys" got thrown in.
There was a time when German army was using "replacement battalions" and also giving caught deserters a chance to "restore their honour" by serving in those units. In wasn't voluntary, unless one got himself additional criminal charges his imprisonment for desertion was merely changed to "in a week you going to replacement battalion number so and so". Also, replacement battalion (according to memoirs I read) was distributed piecemeal along units that were lacking manpower. I don't know whether it meant that division was getting replacement battalion to fill its regiments ranks or whether army was getting replacement battalions that were divided as army saw it fit.
Your eloquence is outstanding.
"Over 100% casualties"
*Hötzendorff* : You gotta bump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers.
fails
Lions led by the Overdressed Donkies.
“The dead men go marching again”
Im currently watching your Assassins Creed Series, and it's ... veeery enjoyable to see someone rant about a games uniforms and historicism, about which i didn't know i'd care so much! But if you want a game set in the Revolutionary war with good uniforms to check out, give Prime & Load: 1776 a run. I would love to have you go through the regiments and accuracy!
5 miles and only 500 deaths what a win
Very good explanation. There is an excellent historical book about Hitlery Regiment in WWI from Thomas Weber "Hitlers First War" (2010) The 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment Casultie List about the war was 3754 KIA, 8795 WIA and 678 MIA for a total 13277 casualties during the war. The original strenght of an infantry regiment was ca. 3000 men. Therefore you could say the 16th Bavarian RIR was wipped out more than four times but Thomas Weber pointed out that it was impossible for him to find an accurate number of how many men really served in the Regiment. Hitler himself is counted several times in this numbers because he was wounded at least two times and sent back to hospital. The 16th Bavarian RIR was an average Regiment, it casulty numbers were very comparable to most other German Regiment. The low Number of Missing and Captured Soldiers was also comparable to other Regiment which were used only on the Western Front during the entire war. Anyway this were horrific casulty rates by any means.
The Dirlewanger Brigade had a 315% casualty rate in the Warsaw Uprising (WWII). The man himself was brutal and ordered the death of 500-ish Polish children too. Wouldn't even use bullets so the men had to use their buttstocks.
how is the first i've ever heard of 100%+ casualties NOT the russian army??
Nice hair dude.
First time I heard about it was an interview with a guy who was part of reconnaissance unit during the Vietnam War. He said they'd get wounded, but go straight back when they'd recover from their injuries.
.. Because Russians didnt have such intense, stale-mate, fortified battles in WW1? Battles on the eastern front were more similar to normal battles of maneveur, encircling, routing enemy troops etc. not sending them to the fields constantly bombarded by artilery since fhe last week
A number of the US divisions that landed in France in 1944 had well over 100% casualties by the end of the war. This was a combination of heavy casualties and the arrival of replacements. The divisions still existed but were to all intents and purposes new ones.
Huge casualties in a single engagement were possible. On the first day of the Somme in 1916 many British battalions had well over 50% casualties and for example the 1st Hampshires was so shot up that only a brief note in the battalion diary was possible - casualties were 100% among officers and very heavy among enlisted men, it said. It was as though so many were killed and wounded that reporting in detail what happened was impossible.
I have written a computer program here. I am working with a battalion of 1000 soldiers fighting five actions, taking 40% casaulties. At the end of each action, the casualties are replaced with recruits. According to my analysis, the battalion will take around 2000 casualties and something like 60 to 90 of the original soldiers will survive. That is 200% casualties, with a significant survival rate. If I change the scenario to 40 actions at 5% casualties, we get 2000 casualties again, but this time, there will be around 130 survivors. We still have 200% casualties, but we have more than 10% of the original troops surviving.
The only way to tell how effective such a 9 month battle was you would have to figure, how many bodies were thrown at the field in total versus how many left the field over the entire period of the battle.
Posted 2 hours ago? The first time I was this early the Patriots were just defeated on Breed’s Hill!
Nicely explained. Thank you.
Does this video have anything to do with that time when you played "Verdun" In your Livestream?
2:20 in I already deduced that that means that the original deployment numbers plus some of the reinforcements to the battle
I'm sure there were some units that by the end of the battle were consisting entirely of new recruits, with absolutely all of the original soldiers in that unit that saw the start of the battle dead.
So, it was the same unit or an entirely new one? The Theseus Unit Paradox!
@@zakazany1945 He means that by the end of battle [the unit] consisted entirely of reinforcements (if I read it correctly).
One of the things that made Verdun so brutal was that cycles for regiments weren't used. If a regiment got depleted and you survived, then your regiment was just replenished and you'd be set to fight there again. You weren't pulled out.
It was called "meatgrinder", "bloodpump" and the soldiers "cannon fooder" for a reason
*Me just singing “Oh what a Lovely war!”*
Well made video, as always, Brandon! Since the Battle of Verdun is my greatest area of interest I was glad to see you make a video related to it. And as always you have a very sobering way of looking and explaining the subject! Verdun was perticularly nasty since the majority of the battle was fought on a rather small and limited geographical space with such a large concentration of artillery shelling it more or less constantly. The stories from those who fought there, both French and German, are a horrific testimony to the slaughter at Verdun. And to the amount of mangled and rotten dead bodies and body parts that not only littered but impregnated the very ground that was fought over. That along withscreams and moans of wounded men who could not be saved due to th constant shelling. The putrid stench of death mixed with that of powder, gas, piss and shit that the poor bastereds who fought there had to live amongst usually without sleep and with little to no food or water other than what they had been able to carry with them selfes when they came up to the front. Forced to live in filthy shellholes or the remnants of destroyed trenches. It was hell on earth!
"Johnson... Attack That Boom Cannon!"
Johnson : *Charges without regards for his life*
Very interesting, thank you.
In a similar way, some U-boats were sunk by enemy action twice. For instance, U31 was sunk in an air raid in March 1940, salvaged, repaired, recommissioned in July 1940 and sunk again north-west of Ireland in November 1940 by HMS Antelope. The whole crew was killed in the first sinking, but only two were killed in the second sinking. (data from www.uboat.net/boats/u31.htm).
People that got relieved of service for mental issues, such as going insane, was also marked as a casualty.
For the first aid kit ad "military grade" sounds like a curse more than a gift.
*THE PLANET CRACKED BEFORE THE GUARD DID* Wait, wrong thing.
CADIA STANDS
TLDR- Unit takes causalities and receives reinforcements, a casualty rate of over 114% basically means 100% of the units original strength became causalities and when replaced 14% of said replacements became casualties.
If you think that is bad, The 3rd Infantry Division, U.S army was in combat for a consecutive 531 days during world war 2, taking a total of 26,000 Casualties, bringing the casualty rate up to between 150 - 300%.
brandon sir big fan
Damn that ad transition was smooth
simple answer ARTILERY ONLY
I've always been obsessed by the First World War.
And the battles and horrific casualties
Both of my grandfathers fought in France and both survived.
One was a British machine gunner and was wounded in the hand.
But other than that I don't know anything about them
100% casualties at only one battle?
*Death Korps of Krieg laughs*
"Buy Dutch warrior box today lads!"
Sounds like Communist party propaganda bud.
Neh, it has the word "Dutch" so we're good.
And "buy" which is something communists don't really believe in.
In WW1 it was quite common though not universal for a British battalion to not send everyone over the top - perhaps 100-150 would stay behind while 700-900 attacked. If the attack succeeded they would follow later. If it failed, they were the cadre around which a new battalion was formed, together with any survivors of the attack.
I remember the Chieftain talking about an American unit with something like 300% percent casualty rate in WW2
I have heard that some bomber wings (squadrons?) in WW2 had 700% casualties. And relatively few of these were wounded men who returned to service. Most were KIA, or captured.
28th division US Marines Iwo Jima I seem to recall I may be wrong but went into battle with 10,000 men it received I belive some 19,000 replacements in just over 30 days now that is 20,000+ casultys!!!