There's a whole hell of a lot more to combat in The Great War than I thought and I already realized there's a ton to it.

As the less-studied of the two World Wars, WWI land warfare is often reduced in the popular narrative to stupid generalship that ordered masses of human targets “over the top” into the teeth of artillery and machine guns. In a manner that even a non-military history student could understand, this video shows how WWI tactics adapted meaningfully to hard lessons learned earlier in the war.

Is this planned to extend to WW2? Obviously if it does, fair bit away from then, but this series is quite interesting.

This stuff is pure gold.

Perfect timing, I just finished rewatching the war room playlist lol

This more a strategic than tactical question. My understanding of one of the reasons why the Western Front stalemate persisted is a combination of tactical mobility being limited to the speed of a man on foot and his horse or foot based logistical support, while the defender could reinforce any breach very quickly by rail. I believe that this is one of the reasons that the German Spring 1918 offensives failed despite initial tactical success. Is this an accurate characterization of the problem, and did the Allies solve this problem of keeping an attack moving fast enough in 1918, or were they able to use normal movement and resupply methods successfully against an enemy who had been exhausted to the point that they didn't have the reserves to move around quickly?

Another amazing war room episode. My knowledge of ww1 was absolute zero before this series and I love how the lessons in these videos show a progression for the next century. Thanks so much for the wealth of knowledge being shared.

I love the war room series!

I hope the War Room doesn't end after you do 1918. While WW1 has the most tactical developments (and many of the most interesting developments) there are still plenty of interesting tactical developments before the Boer War and after WW1. In particular I would be interested in learning when extended order tactics started to gain traction. I got the impression from you Boer War videos that the British were mostly using extended order tactics against rifle armed opponents even before they had a chance to learn any tactical leasons from that conflict (even if the order wasn't as extended as it should have been and the soldiers weren't trained to find independent cover), with some debate over whether close order or extended order tactics were better and the odd battallion commander marching his troops forward in close order. I got a similar impression from your Rifles at Mons video and from listening to Spencer Jones' The Great Retreat of 1914 reguarding the German army, with a similar mix of extended order and close order tactics being used (I also got the impression that everyone who tried close order tactics once immediately switched to extended order tactics for subsequent engagements (you mentioned that even the Japanese extended their order during the attack at Yalu)). Obviously the debate over close order vs extended order tactics wasn't settled until 1914, but extended order tactics had clearly begun to gain traction and enter widespread use long before 1914. So I would love to know when that was. I used to go around telling people that moment was the Franco-Prussian War (now I'm pretty sure that there wasn't a single "moment"). That before the Franco-Prussian War pretty much everyone used close order tactics, and afterwards most armies started switching to extended order tactics. That could still be true as far as I know, but my evidentiary standards have risen a bit over the last decade and I'm no longer comfortable repeating that without more information. I am fairly certain that just a decade later, during the 1st Boer War, the British were using extended order tactics against the Boers (close order tactics against the Zulu, but extended order against rifle-armed opponants), granting that my evidence for this is a few battle scenes from a movie (they are very bad extended order tactics, with an interval of probably less than a meter between soldiers, but they at least usually go to ground when they stop marching (they are marching forward, not rushing forward)). Of course maybe it's possible that extended order tactics were already being used in the Franco-Prussian War (I don't know enough about the small level tactics of that war to say that they weren't (everyone who talks about that war always talks about the big troop movements and never talks about the low level tactics)), although that just changes the question from "when in the 1870s did extended order tactics start gaining traction" to "when in the 1860s did extended order tactics start gaining traction". I have heard some people say (not really compelling evidence, but something that I wouldn't mind being either validated or debunked) that the armies went to war in 1870 with a close order doctrine, but that extended order tactics ended up being used to a greater extent for a myriad of reasons from broken close order formations defaulting to informal extended order formations and continuing to fight more effectively to skirmish lines just turning out to be more effective than expected (if they attacked in Napoleonic fashion then they would have had a line of skirmishers out front to screen the main army, and if the skirmishers ended up being able to bear the brunt of the attack better than expected then you might just keep reinforcing the skirmish line with troops from the main body, rather than sending forward the main close order body).

What an absolute treasure trove of insight.

I was wondering, where would I find ww1 doctine, tactics and tactical oob. Such as how the platoon is structured and fights in this video. What are some good books, etc.

I enjoy this series a great deal.

Amazing series Hapless. Can't wait for the next episode!

These videos are incredible, like Perun presentation levels of incredible. Wish they got more views, very informative and well narrated, this deserves way more attention. Bravo 👏

Great series! Really has improved my understanding of the tactics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Excellent as always

Yet another epic video

Great content as always, probably the best explanation of tactics I've seen in any format. After you've presumably gone through 1945, it would be great to see some stuff on the tactics which were expected to be deployed in the European Theatre during the Cold War at various times - perhaps 10 year intervals - and compare how these differed from the actual tactics employed in real conflicts. Simply going through the Korea and Arab - Israeli wars, for example, would miss the tactical / operational impact of nuclear weapons - very topical today - and it's often noted that various different types of equipment in the Cold War proxy wars (e.g. Soviet tanks) were not used in the ways they were intended, and I'd like to hear more about that.

As stupid as it can sound, but playing Battlefield 1 (besides some fantasy in it... I did not know there were actually people using a sort of "medieval" armor... which in the videogame is exaggerated to the level of ruining immersion, in the Monte Grappa front) can give an understanding of the butchering happening through these times and conflict. The tactics explained here are extremely interesting. I always will be a supporter of acquiring information from multiple media and sources to have a more balanced, imagine and understand the complex picture of past times. Very interesting is also the photography you brought here. Very big work. Thank you.

Hey do you happen to have a discord for your channel? Or a discord for the Combat mission games? I've been considering purchasing one of the games recently due to your video's, but even if I'll get curb stomped for a while, it would be nice to know that I actually have a group to play with

Well, can't say my trust wasn't well-placed... this basically makes most of my books about ww1 warfare obsolete. 😂 I mean, some documentaries talk about the infantry-artillery coordination... and then stop. And fail to explain why it didn't work later on, and what it's limits where. And thats apart from the scaling down of firepower, the massive effect of the wireless radio, the birth and necessity of aerial warfare... this is fascinating. And later on of course, the birth of the tank, and especially the tank doctrine of infantry and cavalry tanks that both the French and British used in ww2 (in broad terms), as well as the need for general motorization and mechanization.

You made a comment about tanks being unreliable while showing only british tanks, did you mean the french tanks like FT too cause i think their modern layout and the fact that they were still used even in ww2 counters that. Edit: Ft were first used in 1918, but french had to have some other tanks before. Those british tanks look like pretty much anything is more reliable than them.

So reverse slope positions. You set up on the counterslope looking towards the enemy coming over the ridge in front of you, or do you set up on the counterslope looking "backwards" toward your lines and shooting guys in the back?

Very informative, as always in the War room ;). To those who are interested in german elastic defense tactics I highly recommend an article "The dynamics of doctrine: the changes in German tactical doctrine during the First World War" by Timothy Lupfer which is open access.

Another UH video, another great day!

Combat Misson: Great War

@0:55 Dog attack!

This is incredibly my shit. Thank you.

the wire on the Hindenburg line was so thick you couldnt fit a broom handle in between it and even that couldnt stop us from cooking those emaciated Germans in their defense in depth in less than a hundred days. s/o to Sergeant York