The War of 1812: What really happened?
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I beleive everyone ran into machinegun fire in the first world war. It was sort of part of the deal, along with Biplanes and monstrous artillery.
Well thats a given as the British Empire became the biggest in the world by making sure its army was made up of either nutters, hard bastards or that unique combination like the scots, mad hard bastardsUltrajoe said:
The way I always heard the war described was (sort of) as follows...
The Americans were worried about the British presence in the north, they wanted to both prevent an invasion to retake the colonies and "liberate" the oppressed british subjects in Canada. They largely took advantage of the distraction provided by the Napoleonic Wars in Europe to invade Canada. The Canadians (specifically the people of Ontario and the Quebecois) didn't exactly want to be liberated so they fought back using the local militia , Guerilla warfare and low urban density to our advantage, holding off the Americans until the British finished off Napoleon, turned their attention back to their colonies and decided to defend their colony as well as teach the "upstart" Americans a lesson by counter invading.
Canadians like to use this as a point of pride (beating the Americans) when all we really did was hold the line until the British Army came and saved our butts from the Big Bad America beast.
The Americans were worried about the British presence in the north, they wanted to both prevent an invasion to retake the colonies and "liberate" the oppressed british subjects in Canada. They largely took advantage of the distraction provided by the Napoleonic Wars in Europe to invade Canada. The Canadians (specifically the people of Ontario and the Quebecois) didn't exactly want to be liberated so they fought back using the local militia , Guerilla warfare and low urban density to our advantage, holding off the Americans until the British finished off Napoleon, turned their attention back to their colonies and decided to defend their colony as well as teach the "upstart" Americans a lesson by counter invading.
Canadians like to use this as a point of pride (beating the Americans) when all we really did was hold the line until the British Army came and saved our butts from the Big Bad America beast.
Sometimes holding the line is enough to achieve the goal of the war.PedroSteckecilo said:
I think we Americans had not yet learned that driving an enemy out of your place is much easier than driving an enemy out of his place.
The war was really a stalemate. Both sides had immense losses, and important places burned. America: White House. Canada: York(present day Toronto). Britain+Canada got their way by not having land taken, and having some bill passed by Britain was suppossed to appease Canada and America, but since imformation traveled so slowly back then, especially between oceans, there was another battle, and America won, making them think they won the war.
I'd like to set as a side note that American troopers were behind in the times until WW1 and even then they weren't top-the-line (in training equipment, ta-ta-tac-tactics, or leadership) that didn't become a reality until MUCH later, like WW2 as America didn't want to end up making the same mistakes, but they were still behind until they read a few news reals and caught up with the fact that the Germans were using blitzkreig. American fighting tech still wasn't all that ahead of the curve until right after the Cold War, as they found they and the Russians were the only ones who built up (as severely) during that time, and even then the only thing making them better than others was the freakishly good pilots, infantry and use of helicopters to move forces faster than ever.
Not until the F-15 and the M-1 Abrams replaced previous vehicles did the Americans claim any kind of technological superiority over anyone else, and due to a lack of funding we are still using these (the F-22 is an F-15 with about 25 years of aircraft design added on, which makes it really good, and the M-1A2SEP is the M-1 with better computers a bigger gun, 1 major design change and a handful of smaller ones, which ain't too bad either, but useless in the fights we are having right now.) Aside from flying first other countries usually keep up with Americans' fliers, aside from pilot skills (like I've said we have freakishly good pilots).
At least that's on the ground and in the air, the American Navy has almost always been ahead of the curve, as early as our civil war the ironclads put us on par with everyone, but the innovation of the turret put us ahead by a number of years (at least until someone from another country saw it and tried to make their own, which wasn't very long)
Not until the F-15 and the M-1 Abrams replaced previous vehicles did the Americans claim any kind of technological superiority over anyone else, and due to a lack of funding we are still using these (the F-22 is an F-15 with about 25 years of aircraft design added on, which makes it really good, and the M-1A2SEP is the M-1 with better computers a bigger gun, 1 major design change and a handful of smaller ones, which ain't too bad either, but useless in the fights we are having right now.) Aside from flying first other countries usually keep up with Americans' fliers, aside from pilot skills (like I've said we have freakishly good pilots).
At least that's on the ground and in the air, the American Navy has almost always been ahead of the curve, as early as our civil war the ironclads put us on par with everyone, but the innovation of the turret put us ahead by a number of years (at least until someone from another country saw it and tried to make their own, which wasn't very long)
Would this be a bad time to point out that the main cannon and the engine form an M1 Abram were orginally designed for the German Leopard MK2.
Also it was only for a short time in the late nineteenth century that America became an inovative ship building country, earlier than that Spain was the leading the way in ship development, than in the twentieth century Germany lead the way in ship building.
Also it was only for a short time in the late nineteenth century that America became an inovative ship building country, earlier than that Spain was the leading the way in ship development, than in the twentieth century Germany lead the way in ship building.
Civil War was 1861-65 thats latter half of the 18th century, also I will admit American ships weren't spectacular during WW1 or 2 only thing truly separating them from everyone else was the numbers (specifically number of ships generated in a short period of time) and in WW2 the decision to base the fleet around aircraft carriers instead of battleships.
First in the 1860's while Monitor was the future of ship development, she was slow, not sea worthy and had limited storage facilities for ammunition. The leadng ships in Navel design at the time were HMS Warrior and HMS Black Prince, both of which were Ocean going, optional steam powered propultion, limited range only but a unique advantage compaired to other ships, had breach loading rifled cannons, and facilities to shoot shells filled with molton iron, which is fucked up.Kovash86 said:
Only because the Japanese failed to sink the carrier fleet, which was their primery target, in the attack on Pearl Habour resulted in that desiction as it was quicker to adapt to a carrier fleet than it was to wait for new battleships to be designed and build.
Also seperation in numbers. In the First World War the entire American Navy made up a single squadron in the combined Allied navy, the Royal Navy made up eight. In the Second War the large numbers came about because of the Washington Navel Treaty that ensured that every other navy from both the Central Powers, and the Allieds, with the exception of the American navy were to be limited in size and weight, hence Germany's development of the deadly pocket battleship, and Britian' "Cherry Tree" ships Nelson and Rodney.
Now you have unnecessay large navy, but with no Empire or other overseas territories to defend or police, they seem to be a monumental waste of money.
There's a great story about a British admiral, whos name I forget.
When the British set about taking apart Washington's public buildings, the admiral made sure to oversee the destruction of a particular newspaper which had singled him out in anti-British articles. Before taking the building apart (he was convinced not to burn it down by local women who worried about their homes going up in flames) he made sure to take all the typefaces which contained the first letter of his name, simply so they couldn't be salvaged and used against him.
As to the war, I'd it's ramfications outside of the US are minimal. I suppose the failure of the counter-invasion convinced Britain's pariliament to let America be, but beyond that it isn't the most world shattering, or even really all that interesting, of wars.
When the British set about taking apart Washington's public buildings, the admiral made sure to oversee the destruction of a particular newspaper which had singled him out in anti-British articles. Before taking the building apart (he was convinced not to burn it down by local women who worried about their homes going up in flames) he made sure to take all the typefaces which contained the first letter of his name, simply so they couldn't be salvaged and used against him.
As to the war, I'd it's ramfications outside of the US are minimal. I suppose the failure of the counter-invasion convinced Britain's pariliament to let America be, but beyond that it isn't the most world shattering, or even really all that interesting, of wars.
It was Sir George Cockburn mind you with a name like that its no wonder he destoryed all the C typefaceMr Wednesday said:
That's because they made the thing in less than 120 days and it was all experimental, so naturally, it wouldn't come out right. The Monitor was designed only to fight in the civil war anyhow, even the French ship the La Goire was more well suited towards international fighting and it was the first ironclad, that doesn't mean it would have beaten The Monitor by any means.A Username Not In Use said:
The Japanese still managed to sink most of the carriers we owned then only a handful escaped and part of that is because they didn't hit the ships hard enough to actually take them out of the war, only a few weren't actually there (1-3 tops), and that doesn't mean anything really since we didn't do anything there for awhile.
I'll be honest WW1 is where a good deal of my historical knowledge comes up short, unfortunately I haven't stared at it hard enough as apparently no one wants to talk about it, they only want to talk about WW2 because it was the last time we clearly won against a clearly evil enemy, and the American Civil war because that was the dumbest shit we have EVER done, aside from elect Bush (but that's my personal opinion).
1 - This will of course cause controversy but; Patton, unfortunately, was not "brilliant". He was an expert at a certain kind of warfare but nearly completely incompetant at another. Patton's expertise lay in exploitation and maneuver. When a battle was almost won and you wanted someone to make that final push to break the enemy line and push beyond it then Patton was your man, if you wanted someone to run hell for leather through open country where the only resistance were isolated fortified positions that could be bypassed then there was no one better than Patton. However Patton proved clueless when presented with concentrated opposition that couldn't be bypassed.werepossum said:
In Sicily when he finally encountered the German rearguard after his pleasure march through pretty much undefended territory he did no better in combatting the Germans than the British did and failed completely to hamper the German retreat. When confronted by a fortified position at Brest he declared he would take the city in a day then he spent over a week assaulting it, lost over 10,000 men achieved nothing then moved on and left it for someone else to deal with. Completely ignoring logisitics during the great swan across western Europe he ran out of supplies but maintained his advance by stealing supplies meant for Hodges' 1st Army and when they ran out found himself halted before the Moselle River. When he recieved material enough to advance again he tried to bounce the Moselle River without any plan or preparation, if he did do reconaisence before hand he completely disregarded it for the Germans were behind the Moselle river and concentrated enough to cause major damage to the 3rd Army as it tried to cross. Once across the Moselle River he attacked Metz, again without a master plan or any preparation, he attacked it on a wide front with piecemeal assaults, all of which caused him to suffer 33-35,000 casualties during the Lorraine Campaign while failing to harry the enemy, defeat him or capture him, only taking Metz when the German defenders pulled out. While the initial turning movement during the Battle of the Bugle was impressive the attack that followed it was not, the attack lacked the strength to achieve what was required of it and it was not until Bradley found more manpower to support Patton that the 3rd Army reached Bastonge. His attack after the relief of Bastonge into a snowstorm caused more casualties to his own side through adverse weather conditions than had been inflicted by the enemy.
2 - Auchinleck's victory at 1st El Alamein did indeed cause Rommel's advance to falter and for that the Auk must recieve a great deal of praise however that battle only served to prove what a bad job the Auk had done overall. Time and again the Auk failed to chose competant army commanders and when he finally took command of the 8th himself his plans and his orders only caused confusion amungst the officers and the troops, resulting in the muddle that was 1st El Alamein and decrease of morale and cohesion within the Army.
3 - Richard O'Conner was captured in 1941. He had pushed the Italians back to Bengazi and completely desimated the Italian armed forced in North Africa but then Churchill got it into his head that the British should help out the Greeks in their struggle for independence and O'Conner's command was stripped of troops to support ultimately doomed operations in the Balkans. When Rommel took command of the Axis forces in the Desert he immediately went onto the offensive, O'Conner was working as an aide to the Army commander Philip Neame and while they were travelling to their new HQ in Timimi they were captured. O'Connor constantly tried to escape captivity and finally managed it in 1943 following the Italian surrender. Upon his return to the British forces he was given a Corps Command in 21st Army Group and saw action in Operation Overlord, the great swan across Europe, Operation Market Garden and further operations in the Netherlands before being sent out to India. He certainly proved to be a capable battlefield commander but considering that his success as an independent commander came only against the poorly equiped, poorly prepared and poorly led Italian Army there is no concievable way in which he can be rated higher than the Auk or Monty.