71st Anniversary of D Day (June 6, 2015)

D-Day Fighting Was So Heavy That 4% Of Normandy Sand Is Still Shrapnel - Business Insider

 

I remember playing Medal of Honor and Call of Duty 2. The D-Day sequences were so intense.

Two sequences from games that have stuck with me.

We need another WWII shooter. Maybe Call of Duty will stop "Future Modern Black Warfare" sequels and take us back to WWII. I'd actually buy that.

CoD on PS4/PC Omaha Beach.

 

It does sound silly, but that opening sequence in Call of Duty 2 was just unreal. The fact you were considered lucky just to make it to the beach is incomprehensible. A war like that, I don't think could happen today, the losses would just be too great.

 

US troops are to well trained to be lost to attrition

WWII, and prior, strategy is not cost effective with modern warriors

 

Well warfare has changed a lot in 70 years too.

The fighting was done face to face and yards apart.

The fighting is done miles away now.


There are folks sitting behind computers in Arizona wiping out insurgents on the other side of the planet and going home to eat dinner with their families.


Warfare will only become more automated in the future.

The real question is when do we let the machine determine a target and make the decision to fire on its own without human interaction?


I wonder if this generation or even the past few could handle the gravity of what those men faced?

 

Many of those guys couldnt "handle it". Trying to secure those beachheads, especially Omaha, was just something that fortunately worked. We can say they were heros.. they were great men (which they were).. but sometimes greatness is forced on you. The men that ran up those beaches did so because there was no other choice.

I complete agree that we will likely never see an assault like that ever again..

Stephen Ambrose wrote a book called "D-Day" .. it's a hour by hour.. min by min account of what happened leading up to the landings, the landings themselves, and off into the hedge row fighting that following immediately.

The book is compiled from a huge amount of military documents and first hand accounts. My favorite part about Ambrose's book are all the fine little details that are included. For instance, the Norman countryside is wine country. There are wine cellars everywhere.. One problem that many commanding officers had after the men made it off the beaches was drunkenness. Even though it was critical on D-Day for our guys to capture key bridges and intersections before the German reinforcements could react, many of our guys disappeared down into wine cellars for the rest of the day.

The British had similar problems.. after they made it off the beaches, it was not uncommon for them to stop everything they were doing and sit around brewing tea. Big waste of time.

Another fun fact is that many of the German units in Normandy were what was called "Ost" battalions. Captured/conscripted troops that were less than loyal. Most Ost battalions had a German officer that stood behind the lines with his pistol drawn ready to shoot any man that tried to flee. A few American and British accounts have it that Ost troops would shoot their German CO and then surrender.

 

Bunch ofGerman units were recuperating from injuries or physically unable to be front line infantry (wild arsed dietary restrictions ect...)

 

That is fascinating! Really