You're a general in charge of an allied army on the western front in 1916. You have the knowledge of today but are still limited by the technology of the time. How do you break through?
build an atom bomb
>>18009678Dig tunnels under the enemy and blow them to smithereens
>>18009678tell the entente they have to let Germany win or else it will happen again twice as badheavy armorCAS
Just hold out and wait for the Dolchstoßlegende.
>>18009678>how do you break through?Anon, they already did this numerous times. The problem was that they couldn’t EFFECTIVELY EXPLOIT the breakthroughs that they’d make.What’d happen was that the Allies would blast holes into the German lines, send troops through the holes, and then… the offensive would sizzle out as reinforcements poured into the area to repel them.The problem was slow speed of communications to HQ. Without a higher speed of communication, troops couldn’t coordinate the best folllowup plans for objectives once beyond the enemy lines.This all has to do with radios, basically. It was IMPOSSIBLE to coordinate these offensives without the profileration of that technology to as many units as possible.
>>18009993so you're saying we need more semaphore balloons and airships
>>18009962Nope, Britain and its Empire lost HALF as many people in WWII as they did in WWI. From their perspective, it was worth it.>heavy armorCompletely unnecessary. Panzers did it in 1940 as lightly armored vehicles.
>>18010000No. Again, how are you going to communicate what is going down at the front at the correct speed (it needs to be delivered right away, zero delay, real time). Without that, the defensive player has by far the greatest advantage in outmaneuvering and boxing in your penetration/exploitation units.
>>18010004signal lamps bro
>>18010001I can knock Russia out of the war with one telegram though. Just have to reveal some details to prove my future knowledge.
>>18010006They actually tried that, as well as flashing searchlights. Didn’t do the trick. Realistically, the answer to OPs question would be to outfit armored vehicles with the existing giant box radios they had at that time. Or rather to have a bunch of them inside dedicated comms vehicles in tow of the spearhead. Radios across the fromt wouldn’t specifically be necessary, the dynamic part of this tech comes for exploitation units.That’s what I’d do, and it’s probably see some measure of success before the Germans copy it.
Why didn't they mass go over the top at night?
>>18010010Okay, elaborate.
>>18010120>t. Typical WWI generalOops welp um hey uh, mr prime minister? We just took another 500k casualties last night. Maybe if we try en masse going over the top at NOON..?
>>18009678Well first of all, Every single allied offensive of 1916 is cancelled. Focus on the defence of Verdun--I know the French will be pissed because their land is occupied but tough shitPhrase it as the generals valuing the soldiers life or something IDK thats for the press department to figure out.Lets assume Verdun plays out the way it does in our timeline, You can use that as a great success that is NOT marred by the insane battle of the somme that same year.Really its just a whole lot of waiting it out. Maybe tell the Italians to stop being retards.Really not much you can do in 1916, do we think the generals back then were also retards? Realistically all you can do is trust the tanks will be a success. I would amass like 300 tanks, make sure the airforce is coordinated as well as possible. Attack near the belgian coast, with as much Royal Navy support as possible, probably sadly again near Paschendalle, although wait until the spring or whenever is the driest monthShore bombardment of the german supply lines near the shore in an attempt to bait the Germany Navy out into open combat again, or just obliterate the defense in depth of the Germans near the shore (fuck the Belgians country is a dump anyways)I would also combine this with a completely charade of an offensive further south, so everyone is told on the allied side they will attack here, preliminary bombardment etc. But the top General just never gives the order to attack.Maybe use the French as bait here, the key is to just bombard them for like a week to 2 weeks before the actual north offensive starts so Germans begin moving all their shit arounfThen just try to completely overwhelm the Germans on the northwest of belgium with tanks, artillery, planes and infantry. After you blow the hole wide open send in all the French and British cavalry you have left to push as far behind the lines and cause as much chaos as possible.
The biggest risk is poor junior leader performance causing units to bunch up and be annihilated. Surprise and counter-battery success are the lynchpins, without them we revert to 1916 attrition.
>>18009678Rape Haig in front of the entire high command to establish dominance
>>18009678Pull a reverse Schlieffen Plan and invade Germany through the Netherlands. Name the operation as "Market Garden" just for the fun of it
>Shore bombardment of the german supply lines near the shore in an attempt to bait the Germany Navy out into open combat againAnd how would you bait the Royal Navy out to do the bombardment?
>>18010559For>>18010222
>>18010123to h.m. czar of all rusiasI am time travelermy proof is [person X] will die at [time to the minute] rusia must make peace with germ nowor your maj's empire will be destroyed
>>18009678I order my men to surrender to the Germans and then offer my services to the side that should have won the war.
>>18010613Germany were the bad guys though
>>18010631Compared to the Entente, no.
>>18010222300 tanks is nowhere near enough at paschendale, you’d need 3000. Plus the entire concept of motorized divisions are lacking here.
>>18009678In 1916 the germans were open for peace negotiations. The entente rejected the offer but in hinsight they should have taken the chance. Today everyone can agree on how horrible the war was for all sides especially in the last 2 years
>>18010931>The entente rejected the offer>Germany: "let us keep the land we've stolen">Entente: "No">"THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
>>18009962>>heavy armor>tank moves at 0.03 MPH and will sink immediately in mud drowning the crew>>CAS>gets shot down by literal rifles because planes are made of paper>>18010222Verdin wouldn’t be victorious without the Somme. It was bloody and ineffective on a grand scale but it’s entire point was to force the Germans to direct SOME troops away from Verdun instead of pouring in all of Germany into it.>>18010292Try to address this without the internet or radios>>18010931>Why doesnt Ukraine just surrender?
I don't think it's possible. The Entente didn't have enough heavy artillery and the British army in particular was still too green to use the complicated tactics required for a successful offensive in World War I conditions
>>18009678>How do you break through?Tanks. The tech of the time was perfectly capable of building effective tanks, had the powers that be thought of it sooner.
>>18009678I don'tI just try to tie down German troops and seek favorable casualty exchanges, and wait for the balkan front to collapse and the blockade to do its work. Breaking through on the narrowest and most heavily fortified front is a fool's errand.
>>18011651It took the British government about a month after first being told about the idea to start work on it. How much faster were they supposed to go?
I don't have enough power to change anything. All the decisions are made above me and handed to me to carry out. If I were part of the High Command I might be able to argue for major changes to the strategy, but as a field commander I am basically a middle manager responsible for carrying out what the central office has decided. All I can do is try to preserve the lives of the men under me, but that is almost impossible unless I throw out the strategy, in which case I will be recalled and court martialed.
>>18009993>The problem was slow speed of communications to HQ. Without a higher speed of communication, troops couldn’t coordinate the best folllowup plans for objectives once beyond the enemy lines.That is because of the rigid top-down command style in Europe. Field officers had virtually no independence and could not improvise. Everything had to go through HQ so the armies were incapable of reacting to sudden developments and had to act on orders from people who didn't fully understand the situation because the speed of communications ensured their understanding was always out of date.
>>18010931Letting the invader keep land he has taken by force justifies his invasion and encourages him to do it again. It's like resolving a burglary by allowing the burglar to keep what he stole. The fighting will continue until the thief admits he was wrong and accepts justice.
>>18011699The inability to harness the initiative of lower level units was one factor among many. No amount of initiative would prevent you from getting blown up by artillery that your own guns can't effectively suppress fast enough for you to dig in on your new position. Equally no artillery doctrine would have made up for the insufficiency of high caliber shells available to the Entente early in the war. The ingredients for a successful Western Front offensive were just not there until late in 1917 at the earliest
>>18011027>>18011705what are you talking about? I'm talking about the note of December 12th 1916 which doesn't formulate any demands and simply asks for negotiations. On the contrary it was the allies who in response put (unacceptable and dishonest) demands before they would even agree to hear the other side which is worth as much as a rejection
>>18011663t. Every British general
>>18009678>look up where the kaiser was located throughout the war>memorize the itinerary>sneak men into germany to capture the kaiser
>>18009678Bombard the German trenches 24 hours a day for one week until there is nothing left, no one would survive that then instruct my infantry to don full packs and walk towards the now empty Germans lines to prepare for a counter from their reserves. I'd also mine underneath their trenches to detonate one of the biggest man made explosions of the time but in order to not injure any of my men I'd tell them to wait 10 minutes until after the explosion to approach it and take up defensive positions. There. I've just won the war.
>>18009678>You have the knowledge of today but are still limited by the technology of the timeI know enough about technology to put them on the fast-track to radio communications. It already exists at the time but the armies don't know how to use it right.
>>18011866Wasn't Germany essentially a military dictatorship by 1916 with Hindenburg and Ludendorff?
>>18011873probably idk. it just seems that the easiest way to cheat with future knowledge is to capture their top brass
>>18011880They would just laugh at you and tell you to keep him
>>18011889then capture heisenberg and labubudorff idk, same difference
>>18009678Id march towards the next synagogue and tell them to fuck off to Madagascar and that Id rather speak german than this shit what France and Britain is nowadays
>>18012173but there was 3x more Jews fighting on German side than on French one
>>18012187Bad enough.
>>18009678I'd probably just reinforce and hold the front and focus more on intelligence gathering and analysis, if possible, and try group attacks away from the front line, such as on logistics, reducing supplies to their front line. I don't know, trench warfare is fucking moronic.
>>18009678Order more planes, more tanks, and more artillery. Focus them on the weakest salient, set up a shitload of reinforcing troops along the wings, then shove them forwards, shelling the fuck out of any surrounding areas to disrupt reinforcements.
>>18011560Surrendering unconditionally can destroy legitimacy and independence. Throwback to France in 1940 vs. Yugoslavia in 1991: outright collapse often leads to occupation and puppet governments.
>>18010000Actually you just need Bitcoin, which solves the Byzantine Generals Problem.
