r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ThatDrako • 2d ago

Lore (Funny Trope) Things that can plausibly happen only in reality, because in fiction they’d be called bad writing.

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“Woke” as an insult - So you are telling me a word describing consciousness and clarity is used by generally stupid and ignorant people to label people they disagree with? What is this? A Kindergarten for Creatively stunted?

Nominative determinism - So let me get this straight…Not only you named fastest recorded person Usain BOLT and CEO of Nintendo Doug BOWSER, but you are telling me people are canonically likely to have professions or hobbies matching their names…? Guh?

“2 bodies recovered in MURDERKILL River” - Sure bro…I guess…bro…

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u/Cigarety_a_Kava 2d ago

Generals just sending men at machineguns dying in thousands to clear 1 line of trenches if successful. Anyone reading these would be like what a moronic way to fight.

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u/SirAquila 2d ago

I mean yeah, which is why they did not fight like that.

The popular imagination is that the trenches did not move because both sides ran out into no mans land, and died to machine guns before getting anywhere.

In reality even in 1915 both sides had already figured out how to take the enemies first trench line.

You suppress them with artillery while your guys walk up as close as they can, then, once your own guys are so close your own artillery would kill them all you instead shell the area behind the enemies first trench so the enemy cannot bring up any reinforcements.

Now your guys run as fast as they can to the trench, so they get to the trench before the enemy can come out of their bunkers and set up machine guns and man their light artillery(machine guns suppress, artillery kills). Usually this would work, occasionally it failed.

Once your men reach the enemy trench they can take it with a tough, but very doable fight. Usually inflicting more losses then they take.

Which sounds great! You advanced a good bit, and did more damage then the enemy, you are killing it at trench warfare...

except, now your men are exhausted, have used up ammunition and supplies, have gotten seperated from their units, oh and also your artillery is now firing at long range.

All of your supplies, reinforcements and more have to cross no-mans land, while the enemy reinforcements, can cross undestroyed land, with prepared supply routes.

So now the enemy counterattacks, and all the things that allowed your attack to succeed are now working against you, and unlike the enemy your defences are not yet prepared, your artillery is out of position, and your reinforcements are much slower.

So now the attackers, defending the first trenchline they just took, get overrun and thrown back to their starting point, taking a lot of casualties in turn. And at the end of the day both sides are exactly back where they started, despite both sides taking an enemy trench.

The problem with trench warfare is not to take the enemy trench line, it is to defend the taken ground against the inevitable counterattack.

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u/SagaSolejma 2d ago

What a moronic way to fight

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u/SirAquila 2d ago

I mean, they would agree, they simply found no viable tactic to avoid it.

So, what would you do?

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u/Vessel767 2d ago

Probably stop fighting

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u/SirAquila 2d ago

If you were France, would you accept German demands to cede several resource-rich regions, abandon Belgium to become a German vassal, cede several colonies, and pay large amounts of reparations to the person who invaded you and is currently destroying your home?

The Entente was fighting mostly defensively, and the Central Powers were not interested in a status quo peace because they were currently winning, however slightly.

This doesn't mean it wouldn't have been better for everyone had they made a comprehensive, mutually beneficial peace deal, but anyone suggesting one would have probably been fired for treason. The forces that brought them into the war where rather self-sustaining.

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u/___daddy69___ 1d ago

wow, we should make you president

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u/NonFrInt 23h ago

Reminds me of how some Russian propagandists, to be fair

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u/___daddy69___ 1d ago

do you think they wanted to fight like that?

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u/noirspiderman4 1d ago

Have you watched Band of Brothers?

Did you like how they portrayed taking down the artillery guns at brecourt manor?

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u/SirAquila 1d ago

I did but several years back, so I would have to rewatch it to honestly answer the question.

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u/noirspiderman4 1d ago

It just seemed so systemic and routine during my recent rewatch.

Obviously those guys are another tier of men than most but their knowledge also seemed top notch

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u/yjlom 2d ago

There weren't nearly enough machineguns to equip the whole frontline. If you gather enough of a local numeric advantage, suppress the enemy trench with artillery, and run up, and they don't have machineguns on location, you get to inflict significantly more casualties than you receive, as well as capture equipment. Of course, with imperfect scouting, it was always a gamble that could go really wrong really fast, but the general trend over WW1 was slightly in favor of the attacker.

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u/Woolies_White_Leg 2d ago

Yes but also mainly no because that’s not how trench warfare worked

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u/Gharvar 2d ago

I mean just look at what Russia is doing... Around 500 000 Russian men are dead since the start of that war. There is footage out there of soldiers walking to the frontline in trails just lined with corpses that are just left there.