In the years that followed, the word Verdun came to represent carnage and heavy losses. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter And, despite its pivotal place in the history of World War I, it ended with the French and German armies in much the same position-at least on a map-that they had held before the whole thing started. The region had also been physically devastated. Though some historians have argued that what we call “Verdun” was in fact a series of battles with elements that not only filled 1916 but also stretched before and after that year, the importance of what Verdun means to 20th-century military history is hard to debate.īy Britannica’s estimation, about 300,000 were killed during the course of those brutal months, out of a total of 400,000 French casualties and 350,000 German. Dreamstime is the worlds largest stock photography community. Use them in commercial designs under lifetime, perpetual & worldwide rights. The idea wasn’t wrong: France was in fact willing to go to extreme lengths to repel the enemy at Verdun, successfully pushing back German advances at great cost. Download all free or royalty-free photos and images. The idea was that France would spend too much effort on that goal, weakening its position and helping the German effort. With its strategic location, the German military determined that Verdun would not only be worthy of attack, but that French forces would go to great lengths to defend it. 18, 1916-100 years ago this weekend, after what TIME later called “the crudest ten months of World War I.” By that point, it had become the Great War’s longest fight. Fighting began at Verdun, named for the French town that was its focus point, on Feb. Peacetime reqs are more stringent than wartime reqs.The 10 photographs seen here all bear the same basic place and date information: Verdun, 1916.īut that information hardly does justice to the battle they depict. Situations where it would be a purely RN affair and have no input from the RAF are extremely limited - 1. E.g five frigates participated in Joint Warrior exercises last year IIRC, if they would have been needed, those 5 could have formed the task group.įor peacetime/excursions like Libya or Syria, when combined with RAF assets it will more than adequate. They would not jam their fingers in their ears and not contribute.Īs such, any composition in a hot war scenario is debatable because it'd be dependent on the situation at the time. If the Gulf got hot, the assets in place in the Gulf would become part of any RN involvement including destroyers, frigates, tankers etc. One is far more destabilising than the other. As is the idea of say a Type 45 patrolling the Gulf and something flares up, that extra Type 45 - effectively - becomes part of the task group as any major conflict in the Gulf takes precedent over piracy patrols. In '82, Lustys work up was the voyage to the South Atlantic as an example. This is a stupid assumption.Īny ship doing training or work up would be pulled up to form a super task group in the event of a state-on-state conflict. People like taking snapshots of ships locations/deployments etc and take the ones which are sat in port doing nothing to be the available escorts. That's a thing, considering how mixed these carriers are supposed to be, I hope the RN gets used to keeping marinised aircraft on the deck unless maintenance is required. I like Apache, incorporating them into the air group keeps the F-35B from *needing* to do CAS for a good chunk of scenarios. A current AAC squadron consists of 8 aircraft, considering availability that probably results in 6 Apaches ready to go. Oh, also learnt that the Army Air Corps now has a requirement to keep one regiment of Apaches at high readiness consisting of two squadrons one to support 16 Air Assault Brigade and another to support the Queen Elizabeth class. The Queen Elizabeth class seemingly has an aim to be able to throw up a comprehensive ASW screen by herself alone. Also there's no guarantee that any of the accompanying frigates will have a towed sonar array, statistically it's favourable 8/5, but there could easily be only one. In a RFTG configuration, add in an LPD, LSD & RoRo. ![]() That's not to say I think there shouldn't be one, there absolutely *must* be one at least. We've seen the RFTG deploy for the last 3 years (I think) with a pair of frigates without a Type 45 in site. ![]() Pretty much that's right for peacetime, but make it two escorts than a destroyer and frigate.
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