Maggie's Farm

njartist49 - exactly how would you have put the troops of the Western allies ashore in Europe? I'm curious where there was a more lightly defended area suitable for amphibious landing. Or maybe you would have had them fight through the Alps, or perhaps just join the picnic in the light skirmishing tea party of the Ostfront. Pardon me if I don't see the incompetence or the wanton waste of life here, particularly in light of the relatively smooth unfolding of events on other beaches - understand that a lot of the issues were caused by faulty intelligence, and by German maskirovka that had the allies attacking places they thought were more heavily fortified and finding nothing, and attacking places that until quite recently had been unfortified. Now Sicily was a disaster, but that was more due to Mark Clark's failure to move aggressively off the beeches, and the Hurtgenwald was also butchery due to one of the fairly rare examples of the U.S. generals buying into an attrition strategy. But for the most part U.S. generals in WWII were fairly solicitous of the lives of their troops. The U.S. lost around 430,000 troops total, the Soviets lost around 11 million. In the Pacific, where the actual fighting at the 'tip of the spear' was far, far more brutal than the fighting in the West, there were around 41,000 combat deaths. MacArthur, Nimitz and their generals were remarkably sparing of the lives of their men, bypassing most Japanese strongholds in favor of choking off their logistical supply chain.

You can go further back to WWI where the U.S. did fight in the trenches, but there again the focus was on fire and maneuver, a method which incurs sharp casualties at the schwerpunkt but which avoids the type of attrition that decimated the British, French and German forces during that war. Since WWII, the whole point of reliance on technology and training is to permit, to the extent possible, the minimization of casualties, and the way the main force battle in Iraq was fought, for instance, demonstrates how casualties are minimized. Heavy armor, high firepower, standoff engagement ability, and an emphasis on envelopment battles. We have enormous artillery and air capacity as a result, and our targeting systems are unmatched. This has been the approach used since WWII, and particularly since the end of the draft and I think it works. The U.S. is frighteningly good tactically, despite the occasional parochial bigotry of our allies. I'll notice our enemies don't spend a lot of time ridiculing our military... wonder why that is.

The bottom line is I think your generalization is pretty silly when you get down to the particulars. There are almost always heavy casualties at the tip of the spear, no matter how aptly that spear is placed. Troops to generals are like nails to a carpenter. Some of them get used up in the work process. A good carpenter uses fewer. Most U.S. generals, particularly since WWII and the evolution of a large, standing professional officer and noncom corps, have been able to achieve tactical goals very efficiently.

Yes, I've read those. If you found Manchester's book moving and an interesting history, I'd recommend Eugene Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. When you understand how sharp the fighting was it's remarkable how MacArthur and Nimitz managed to keep casualties so low through the island-hopping strategy.

They're the private sector corporate that cooperates with the Chinese government in cracking down on free speech and freedom of religion, yet their corporate motto, supposedly, is "don't be evil." Just between thee and I, I'm not worried about what Google flies from their front porch. I don't expect much of them.