Thread 17904223

The napoleonic wars were more brutal than the two world wars, the only exception being the number of deaths.

>>17904223 (OP)
You're right, but sensationalism has ruined any chance of the majority of today's public realizing that fact. The 7 Years War was also brutal and is key to understanding modern political structures, but it is also often overlooked.

>>17904223 (OP)
How so? Do you wanna compare cavalry to planes that can fly at the speed of sound and could level entire cities?

>>17904292
>Airplaines!?>
Midwit take
>How so?
Number of men in the field/casualties
The wrong way of looking at brutality of warfare, especially before the 20th century is took at total population/casualties, since the vast majority of a population would not be impacted by warfare in any way that is a dumb way of looking at the hellishness, or not, of warfare, the correct way of looking at this is like I said earlier, the servicemen involved/casualty ratio
Few Americans understand that the most brutal war, in terms of the guys actually in the field, was the 1846 - 1848 Mexican - American war
We lost over 13,000 men in a two year span, when the total of servicemen involved, both army and navy was a little over 100,000
A casualty rate of over 10%, even in the 1840s, means that the battlefield conditions were really really fucked up

>>17904292
Smolensk ended just as badly as Dresden, and it didn't take a plane to do that.

>>17904309
Sorry this wrong
The American Civil War actually had a larger casualty/servicemen ratio of over 21%, the Mexican American wars was a little lower at 16.5 but I overstated the number of men served, it was actually around 75,000, which puts my point in stark relief, of around 75,000 guys who served in that conflict 13,000 died of either enemy fire or disease
In most wars, especially involving a huge country like the US most guys dont even see combat, let alone lose their lives or a limb
In the Mexican American War if you served you were lucky to not be severely wounded, killed or diseased in two years of fighting

>>17904223 (OP)
There were so many more brutal factors that came into world wars like getting burned alive by flamethrower,stepping into mine and losing your limbs for no reason,trench warfare and all the "fun" stuff that came with it like infections or losing limbs and having your ear randomly bitten off by a rat. being buried alive after random collapse due to explosions, gas, ever present shellshock and PTSD. Its not even close. Even medieval warfare was more brutal.

>>17904223 (OP)
No

>>17904309
So let me ask you again, do you really wanna compare any line battle unit to modern warfare?

In ancient Greece, the winners of pitched battles suffered only 5% casualties on average, and the losers suffered an estimated average of 14% losses, and most of those are from after the line breaks. Wars were decided in a single battle that lasted an afternoon. Completely different from modern warfare.

Line battle was a lot different than modern warfare where you want your soldiers to show some more brains and initiative and also stop falling asleep during the powerpoints.
Back then you mainly needed them to go forwards instead of backwards when you ordered them to.

>>17904321
>In most wars, especially involving a huge country like the US most guys dont even see combat, let alone lose their lives or a limb
I thought we are talking about the two world wars here, you dumb dipshit

>>17904334
>Even medieval warfare was more brutal.
Complete nonsense
Conservative estimates during the 1803-1815 war start at 3,000,000 but some are high as 7 million
The population of Europe and the world skyrocketed in the following 100 years or so
There were significantly fewer people on Earth in 1800
>loss of limbs, ptsd, being buried alive by debris
Yeah, those things didnt happen in 1810
You have no idea what you're talking about homie

>>17904351
>wanna
>WELL IN ANCHENT GREASE
The Napoleonic wars went from 1803 to 1815
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
>I thought we are talking about the two world wars here
Maybe sit this one out big guy

>>17904365
It was all the same shit until WW1

Your standard for what's brutal is completely autistic, being mainly based on numbers. Many considered the world wars brutal mainly in the style of warfare. Almost all deaths from artillery happen in the first 1 minute before people find adequate cover, the real purpose of prolonged 9 hour artillery barrages are to mentally wear down the enemy, and its proved to be incredibly effective.

The US military said that the greatest cause of mental breakdowns in war were caused by artillery shelling. Troops in WW1 had the whiplash from the most prosperous period in human history (1815-1914) to spending 4 years lying face down in the mud, chewing barbed wire with ear splitting artillery exploding over their heads as their friends choked on poison gas.

The Napoleonic wars were brutal, I think it had a burn rate of 30,000 soldiers a month, 1000 a day. That doesn't even compare to the absolute brutality of ww1. Some days had a combined loss of 200,000 soldiers on both sides. That's three football stadiums lost in one sun up and sun down.

The nature between being attacked by a line of fusiliers versus a whole squad getting mortared to oblivion or a platoon all choking to death from their own bodily fluids due to gas is completely different, and thus were more brootal

>>17904388
You're confusing raw totals with percentages of servicemen killed or wounded in combat
The Russian empires deaths as a percentage of their population in WWI was under 2% which is lower than the US's total population/war deaths in the Civil War
Im detecting this attitude in your post and another one in this thread where you seem to be under the impression that wars in the 1700s and 1800s were tea parties interrupted by inaccurate musket fire and nothing could be further from the truth
Look at the picture, both Germany's and Italy's casualties as a percentage of their servicemen in the field is about in line with America's in the Mexican American War
You insistence that WWI was #UNPRECEDENTED is extra funny in the light of most historians of European history being of the opinion that the 1914 - 1918 isn't, in actuality, the first world war, there's debate on this ofc but most consider either the seven years war or the war of the austrian succession to be the real first 'World War'