The War Room IX: Trench Raid

1/4 Duke of Wellington's Regiment go body-snatching in February 1917 and what this tells us about the choreographed set peice vs defence in depth.
Sources for this one:
Mostly "The History of the 1/4th Battalion, Dukes of Wellingtons (West Riding) Regiment" which has made it onto Project Gutenberg since I bought it: www.gutenberg....
Backed up an article on the same raid on the LongLongTrail (which is an excellent resource): www.longlongtr...
I really don't have chance to get to the National Archives to actually get my hands on the sources themselves, so I am probably over reliant on secondaries.
This is part of the War Room series looking at the tactical developments leading up to the creation of modern warfare in World War One.
#tactics #militaryhistory #worldwar1

[@TheThingInMySink]

Absolutely love the War Room series, the quality here never ceases to impress.

[@Euan_Miller43]

Thank you for covering what I find the most interesting topic of WW1. By far my favourite of your war room videos

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Got to love a bit of Trench Raiding!

[@jamesduston9292]

The time decay into chaos that the scripted battle plans go through upon implementation reminds me of the Iraq-Iran War. In a very macro view, it is very interesting how everything favored the defense. Even there was massive battlefield success, strategically the defenders fall back on to their communication network and their rail networks that can timely transport massive of men and supplies to the area. Al the while, the attacker outran his supply network, communication network and heavy artillery.

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Yep. I need to do another video explaining it in terms of OODA Loops. Defenders are fast, Attackers are slow, so Defenders have the advantage

[@colbysimpson5936]

Whoa whoa whoa, it isn't Friday. What strange magic brought us this blessing? :D

[@usuallyhapless9481]

War Room Wednesday ;)

[@ThePizzaGoblin]

I love the micro level looks so much. Please please please do more

[@mikhailfilitov1479]

This series has proven to be by far my favourite of yours - it does a fantastic job displaying the failures and success of a conflict that is so often reduced to a 2D meatgrinder. Especially given that many of the concepts you discuss are 'evergreen' the nature of sequencing actions, explaining the status of the arms race at that particular point in time (e.g. wire vs cutters which could just as easily be ATGMs and MBTs in the current era) and the way actions are always created with operational or strategic objectives in mind. In this case ISR. Because of this 'evergreen' presentation it's easy to imagine the substitution of a UAV equipped group of Ukr raiders infiltrating the perimeter of a Russian position, performing short range ISR and then inflicting minor causalities with drone dropped hand grenades (and mortar bombs just like the bombs you mention in this video...) and extracting before the Russian OODA loop enables them to reply with artillery fires. The concepts are mostly the same it's just that timescales are reduced and the weapons more advanced.

[@DeathscreensandDadBodsGaming]

This is one of the best descriptions I’ve ever seen of how complex and layered WWI tactics actually were. Well done!

[@Garnansoa]

A very good video on an underdiscussed element of WW1 - The Trench Raid. It was an art in and of itself, and saw the very infancy of combined arms tactics. I'm glad to see others interested in this, excellent presentation.

[@Kefuddle]

Absolutely brilliant video. It also seems like a distillation of the core of any tactical mission.

[@rice5668]

Popped into my recommendations immediately

[@d.c.6065]

Love the War Room videos, and I'm looking forward to the next one about the German offensive!

[@usuallyhapless9481]

(Spoiler alert: it doesn't go as well as they would like!)

[@candycanefim723]

Good stuff Hapless, keep it up and stay frosty buddy

[@nicholasshaler7442]

Wild that over a year and a half later, bill hooks have returned to The War Room.

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Probably a bit wilder that billhooks first made an appearance a long way beyond the middle ages

[@timcatherall1357]

Thank you - an excellent informative video. Would like to have a combat mission game first late WW1…

[@EroticFungus]

Weird. I was just thinking about when's the last time you uploaded a video on the drive home today.

[@karlhungus545]

Thanks for the video. It's amazing that 50% casualties were acceptable in this war (not in this raid obviously, but I wonder how rare this was?). Every politician and general/officer that was for this war should have been jailed or executed. You'd like to think we've learned our lesson as human beings, but I'm not convinced.

[@jakegreen5682]

Your amazing man thank you for teaching me how to play

[@jakegreen5682]

It would be awesome if you did a series of combat mission custom games that mirror these videos while teaching us how to accomplish the subject of the video. Set up a custom game of you playing the Brit’s and doing a trench raid.

[@devienconfer7089]

Hey hapless, I've been trying to get CMBN but buying it through battlefront seems to be difficult. Like with the patches and key activation. Could you maybe explain how someone can get past these?

[@maxwellfairfield888]

Phenomenal video as always.did the Germans or any other nations do these raiding parties during WW1?

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Thanks! Yes, everyone was up to this kind of stuff all the time.

[@TheThingInMySink]

@@usuallyhapless9481 What about the kind of troops doing this for the Germans? The popular image seems to be that it was mainly done by the Stoßtruppen, but did the more regular German Infantry take part in these trench raids? I'd assume they must have purely by necessity, but I can't recall ever reading or hearing about any actions that specifically mention this.

[@usuallyhapless9481]

IIRC, Stosstruppen definitely applies to specific assault units that would enter the line, conduct a raid and then leave; but could also be applied to detachments created by troops already in the line for the purposes of a raid.

[@whyme943]

Are the battalion diaries you’re basing this on available online, or have you been visiting the archives?

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Links now in the description ;)

[@MihajloLikevic]

Hello, Usually Hapless! Recently, I've developed an interest in wargames, and after seeing a couple of gameplay videos of various games, I've stumbled upon your KZbin channel, and I have to admit that I love the videos you upload with games of this particular genre, and I especially love HOW you play them. ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ I'm contacting you because I wanted to ask you what wargames in your opinion do you consider are the best? I'm looking for some recommendations on what war games to play to spend my free time, so contacting someone who has experience with this type of genre is what I had in mind since I'm new to it :) Real-time or turn-based, complex or simple, all that stuff doesn't matter, because what matters to me is that the game's timeline is set in modern, or near modern times (like the early 2000s, or a few decades in the future (since the game's release)). While I would prefer a modern game, if you don't have many recommendations for them, something set in older timeline is okay as well I guess, as long as it's set in the Cold War era. World War 1 and 2 are the areas I'm not particularly interested in, as I'm mostly interested in the technologies we have today, or from the CW era, so feel free to ignore those WW 1 & 2 types of games. Some games that come to mind are: Command: Modern Operations, Combat Mission series, Wargame series (AirLand Battle, European Escalation, etc.), Fleet Command, Armored Brigade, WinSPMBT, etc. One more thing that I would like to mention is that graphics DO NOT matter to me at all. I don't mind if the game is pixelated or as realistic as possible. As long as I can run it, all that matters to me is what I wrote above. And that's all from me. Apologies for writing you such a long message, hopefully, it wasn't too much to read. Looking forward to your suggestions, and next uploads! Best wishes!

[@usuallyhapless9481]

I almost exclusively play Combat Mission (I suspect my brain can't handle introducing any other systems), so Combat Mission Cold War (Fulda Gap, 1979-82), Shock Force 2 (Syria, 2008) and Black Sea (Ukraine, *hypothetical* 2017) are probably your best bets. The latter two have demos on the Battlefront website, so you can always try before you invest- they are still pretty expensive. Command: Modern Operations is also pretty good- definitely in use professionally like CM. It just melts my brain trying to understand all the technical stuff. I've never really played the Wargame series, so can't comment but I suspect it's a lot more 'fast clicky RTS' than something like CM. Fleet Command and Sub Command are good if you're prepared go old school naval/sub simulator. These are somewhat superseded by C:MO, but I think they're more accessible (and cheaper, being ancient). Cold Waters is basically an updated Sub Command. Steel Beasts is also worth a look if you want a tank simulator- this is also a training tool with fully modelled interiors and the ability to press all the buttons (which all do stuff). Hope that helps a bit!

[@MihajloLikevic]

@@usuallyhapless9481 Hi, again UH! Sorry for the late reply, I had trouble with my net so I had to contact my ISP to fix it. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, I'll be sure to check those games out, especially the CM games :)

[@MihajloLikevic]

@@usuallyhapless9481 Hi, (yet again), UH! I have another question for you that I forgot to ask in the previous comment that I sent to you, and that is: Do you happen to know of any Wargames that have an educational aspect to them? Something like a "war academy" that teaches you real-life stuff. Or maybe something like an in-game tutorial, training, or "battle academy", (or even outside the game, like in a manual or some other document that comes with the game) that teaches you about combat tactics and strategy to use with that and that unit, or something like what your army should be composed of (infantry, tanks, aircraft, etc.), and how many units of each role you should have, how to use each of those units effectively, and so on... The only game that I played so far that has something like this was Arma 3, and I loved how that game features many tutorials and advices on infantry combat, tactics, strategies, and so on. Now however, I'm looking for something on a larger-scale, like with the whole armies, and learning what beats what, how to beat that and that, all those tactics and strategies that would be used in modern-day combat (as far as we civvies know), which is one of the reasons why I've developed an interest in wargames recently. Unlike my previous request, this time, feel free to recommend games that have this sort of thing from ANY timeline, as it doesn't matter. Even sci-fi is welcome, as long as it has lessons that are (or can) be used in modern battles. Now, I know this is a bit of a stretch for a video game, but honestly, I like to learn about stuff like this (even tho I don't plan on joining the army or becoming a general or anything like that lol), and having games that have this educational aspect to them would bring great value to it and be more immersive in my opinion. Do any games like that come to mind? If not, do you happen to know who I could contact for such info? Thanks again for the previous reply, and for the recommendations. I really appreciate it! :D

[@JuanGomez-ny1ng]

Hey happless any chance you could reupload to Dropbox the images from the ride to schweben discussion vídeo.

[@marcoeire44]

Iv always wondered about why they cut the barbed wire at all, I know they targeted it with artillery but why didn't the infantry carry duck walks with them and just squash the wire down to run straight over it, or even just construct special ramps for the job, it wouldn't be much harder work than digging trenches.

[@usuallyhapless9481]

There's a *lot* of wire, usually in non-compressable amounts (ie. not squashable) plus I'd imagine going over it would make you a really good target. Course, I'm sure it was tried!

[@sapperjaeger]

Can you share the source(s) for this? This is absolutely exceptional!!

[@usuallyhapless9481]

Mostly "The History of the 1/4th Battalion, Dukes of Wellingtons (West Riding) Regiment" which has since made it onto Project Gutenberg since I bought it: www.gutenberg.org/files/67633/67633-h/67633-h.htm Backed up an article on the same raid on the LongLongTrail (which is an excellent resource): www.longlongtrail.co.uk/into-action-1-4th-west-riding-regiment-trench-raid-17-february-1917/ I really don't have chance to get to the National Archives to actually get my hands on the sources themselves, so I am probably over reliant on secondaries.

[@glenchen5723]

Friday came early

[@shamasmacshamas7135]

Would you be able to share where you got the trench map for this?

[@usuallyhapless9481]

digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A70544

[@shamasmacshamas7135]

@@usuallyhapless9481 Thank you!

[@CarloTheCurious]

5:40 what on earth is the soldier on the left doing with his bayonet?

[@usuallyhapless9481]

I have absolutely no idea. Might just be bored waiting lying in the dirt waiting for the photographer to get on with it

[@nicholasshaler7442]

I think he’s resting it there, which is about where he would be holding it while probing for mines.

[@filipbonek8629]

Horrific how relevant this history is for study for the current conflictl

[@larsdejong7396]

"I'm sure the trench raiders found other uses for them." *mental image of someone using it in the medieval style to decapitate some unfortunate german*

[@mr.apsylone9191]

You shpuld play "On the Western Front", a 2018 game where you are the commander of a single division in WW1.

[@frankclough380]

I fail to see how anything in that war could be called a success, the whole war was a pointless waste of time along with everything that happened in it.