I don't think the USA can simply starve the Confederacy to death, AKA WWII Japan,
Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
It still boggles the mind how the men in charge of the WW1-era German economy used exactly this type of approach in OTL.
the last new USN doctrine of the war: "embarrassment bombing" or "window-knocking" to just plink random buildings in Galveston or Newport News: if the High Command won't learn that the Yankees don't even have to use planes by now, everyone on the Atlantic and Gulf coast will literally be hearing it night and day, and just when the locals think they have the firing schedule memorized a new shipment of shells is loaded and the gunners can fire at-will
It does lead to the question of whether the Navy has run out of "exciting" targets. If the Brazilians won't come out and fight them (and in fact have been bamboozled into peace negotiations), what is the Navy supposed to do with all of their neat toys...
Bombard the best remaining stuff along the Confederate coasts until the end of the conflict.
Marine landings are better. Gotta show dominance to ensure a second war never happens.
I’m hoping to consolidate a lot of the GAW battlefield content, at least, to get us through faster and start broadening the focus again as 1916 progresses due to how much of the TL this war has now taken over lol. I’m with you!
Already happening, and will only get worse
More or less
At the federal level in the CSA, they did? Huh, for some reason I had always understood that as being state-by-state
Pershing
"...for such a forgotten battle, especially in the long shadows of Nashville before it and Atlanta and the March to the Sea after, was nonetheless among the most harrowing of the war. Pershing described the conditions his men were exposed to at Chattanooga as "medieval," and the campaign earned the moniker "the Red Snow" on both sides of the fighting. So when the breakthrough finally came in early February and his men were raising Old Faithful over hills on the other side of the Tennessee River they had stared grimly at for nearly three months as shells landed around them and they were as likely to freeze or starve to death as to die of their wounds, Pershing felt nothing other than relief and a determination to push on once his forces had suitably regrouped. They had fended off multiple counterattacks and even come back after having to retreat ten miles inland from their initial lines after a particularly violent and temporarily successful Confederate offensive, but now Chattanooga was theirs - the Tennessee Campaign, after nearly two horrifying years, was finally at an end. [1]
Strategically, Chattanooga was an important victory because it placed American forces in control of the entire Tennessee Valley but more crucially set them immediately on the edge of Georgia, thus touching that state for the first time in the war other than raids against Savannah from the sea. The previous capture of Knoxville and the fighting in Middle Tennessee had already significantly diminished the city's importance as a rail junction, however, and as they had previously in Nashville and much of Kentucky, Confederate planners had been clever about evacuating the vast majority of the city's light industries southwards. Now Georgia stood ahead, and as Pershing wrote to Stimson and Bliss on February 19th as he stood staring out over the snowy Appalachian foothills, "we shall deny them anyplace further to evacuate."
Pershing's men were utterly spent, however, and needed badly to regroup, and partisan attack by the Irregular Divisions had badly strained his supply lines at the height of winter, and so he identified early April as the target for his push into Georgia, with the city of Rome upon the confluence of the important Coosa his first objective. In drafting the plans for the Georgia Offensive with his two most trusted subordinates in Harbord and Menoher, Pershing determined that a massive drive to Atlanta would be the first stage of the campaign, and once the city was in his hands, his army would spread out into several columns across Georgia, with different destinations - Augusta for the left flank, Savannah for the center, and Columbus and finally Valdosta for the right flank. From there, these newly divided armies could easily punch into central and coastal South Carolina, with the factories of the Upcountry and Charleston in their crosshairs, while the westernmost formation would push towards Tallahassee and Jacksonville, thus finally cutting the Confederacy entirely in two. As such, Pershing viewed his campaign as considerably more critical than Lenihan's increasingly delayed push into Virginia, as it was in Georgia and, thereafter, South Carolina where the war would be won.
To that end, his near two-month pause to regroup and resupply was not just done to bring in fresh divisions of men for the final push but also to make sure that he had sufficient air cover, especially newer "diver-bombers" that had been developed by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of upstate New York, to utterly harry the enemy from the sky as well as a full armored "cavalry division" of landships to push through enemy defenses. Harbord especially was skeptical that much could be achieved in the coming offensive without all these supplies, as more short-term attacks over the preceding year had always been limited by the American supply situation being superior, but not overwhelming. Confident that the Confederacy had no proper deterrent to these kinds of weapons, Harbord advocated doing the campaign "correctly, the first time, rather than correctly after learning from several mistakes that cost us thousands in human treasure." Pershing concurred, and as always, Bliss smoothed over any frustrations back in Philadelphia that he wasn't moving quickly enough.
Pershing would be glad he had taken the time to ponder his offensive, in the end. His thrusts towards Rome and Gainesville, meant to capture small factory towns on their own merits but also give him pincer positions to the northwest and northeast of Atlanta, were badly stymied by spring floods on the Coosa and Chattahoochee Rivers. Reconnaissance behind enemy lines also revealed that, after Chattanooga, the entire command structure of the Confederate defense of Georgia had been revamped, with all divisions stretching from the South Carolina state line on the Savannah River to Birmingham, Alabama consolidated under the command of General Mason Patrick, the man who had successfully led the initial invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania but been sent south for failing to prevent the collapse at the Susquehanna. Pershing had been concerned about facing Patrick head-to-head as it was simply in the environs of Atlanta, but especially now that he once again enjoyed a theater-level command. It was generally thought within the US War Department that Patrick was one of the most capable and clear-eyed Confederate senior generals and the successes in the Eastern Theater were, in large part, a byproduct of no longer having to face him directly in the field. Patrick had also become extremely well-versed in logistics having had a command in Atlanta, the beating heart of the Confederate transport network, for close to two years and understood his local geography and its defenses backwards and forwards. In other words, despite the end of the war potentially being in sight, Pershing understood perhaps better than anyone how difficult his objective would be, clear as it was on paper.
The Atlanta Campaign had begun..."
- Pershing
[1] In the spirit of me finding writing the blow-by-blows boring, just know that there was a bloody, terrible campaign around Chattanooga roughly modeled on Sherman and George Thomas's push for the city of OTL in the ACW, with corresponding Confederate counterattacks.
Strategically, Chattanooga was an important victory because it placed American forces in control of the entire Tennessee Valley but more crucially set them immediately on the edge of Georgia, thus touching that state for the first time in the war other than raids against Savannah from the sea. The previous capture of Knoxville and the fighting in Middle Tennessee had already significantly diminished the city's importance as a rail junction, however, and as they had previously in Nashville and much of Kentucky, Confederate planners had been clever about evacuating the vast majority of the city's light industries southwards. Now Georgia stood ahead, and as Pershing wrote to Stimson and Bliss on February 19th as he stood staring out over the snowy Appalachian foothills, "we shall deny them anyplace further to evacuate."
Pershing's men were utterly spent, however, and needed badly to regroup, and partisan attack by the Irregular Divisions had badly strained his supply lines at the height of winter, and so he identified early April as the target for his push into Georgia, with the city of Rome upon the confluence of the important Coosa his first objective. In drafting the plans for the Georgia Offensive with his two most trusted subordinates in Harbord and Menoher, Pershing determined that a massive drive to Atlanta would be the first stage of the campaign, and once the city was in his hands, his army would spread out into several columns across Georgia, with different destinations - Augusta for the left flank, Savannah for the center, and Columbus and finally Valdosta for the right flank. From there, these newly divided armies could easily punch into central and coastal South Carolina, with the factories of the Upcountry and Charleston in their crosshairs, while the westernmost formation would push towards Tallahassee and Jacksonville, thus finally cutting the Confederacy entirely in two. As such, Pershing viewed his campaign as considerably more critical than Lenihan's increasingly delayed push into Virginia, as it was in Georgia and, thereafter, South Carolina where the war would be won.
To that end, his near two-month pause to regroup and resupply was not just done to bring in fresh divisions of men for the final push but also to make sure that he had sufficient air cover, especially newer "diver-bombers" that had been developed by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of upstate New York, to utterly harry the enemy from the sky as well as a full armored "cavalry division" of landships to push through enemy defenses. Harbord especially was skeptical that much could be achieved in the coming offensive without all these supplies, as more short-term attacks over the preceding year had always been limited by the American supply situation being superior, but not overwhelming. Confident that the Confederacy had no proper deterrent to these kinds of weapons, Harbord advocated doing the campaign "correctly, the first time, rather than correctly after learning from several mistakes that cost us thousands in human treasure." Pershing concurred, and as always, Bliss smoothed over any frustrations back in Philadelphia that he wasn't moving quickly enough.
Pershing would be glad he had taken the time to ponder his offensive, in the end. His thrusts towards Rome and Gainesville, meant to capture small factory towns on their own merits but also give him pincer positions to the northwest and northeast of Atlanta, were badly stymied by spring floods on the Coosa and Chattahoochee Rivers. Reconnaissance behind enemy lines also revealed that, after Chattanooga, the entire command structure of the Confederate defense of Georgia had been revamped, with all divisions stretching from the South Carolina state line on the Savannah River to Birmingham, Alabama consolidated under the command of General Mason Patrick, the man who had successfully led the initial invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania but been sent south for failing to prevent the collapse at the Susquehanna. Pershing had been concerned about facing Patrick head-to-head as it was simply in the environs of Atlanta, but especially now that he once again enjoyed a theater-level command. It was generally thought within the US War Department that Patrick was one of the most capable and clear-eyed Confederate senior generals and the successes in the Eastern Theater were, in large part, a byproduct of no longer having to face him directly in the field. Patrick had also become extremely well-versed in logistics having had a command in Atlanta, the beating heart of the Confederate transport network, for close to two years and understood his local geography and its defenses backwards and forwards. In other words, despite the end of the war potentially being in sight, Pershing understood perhaps better than anyone how difficult his objective would be, clear as it was on paper.
The Atlanta Campaign had begun..."
- Pershing
[1] In the spirit of me finding writing the blow-by-blows boring, just know that there was a bloody, terrible campaign around Chattanooga roughly modeled on Sherman and George Thomas's push for the city of OTL in the ACW, with corresponding Confederate counterattacks.
I probably missed something somewhere, but when did the US flag get the nickname "Old Faithful"? I'm not complaining (Subjectively, its better than Old Glory), I'm just curious.
Americans: Spend months fighting and dying to capture a place that used to be a city.
Confederates: Pick up all their stuff, retreat twenty miles away, set up a bunch a trenches, and continue to inflict horrifying casualties despite their troops being starving and exhausted.
Confederates: Pick up all their stuff, retreat twenty miles away, set up a bunch a trenches, and continue to inflict horrifying casualties despite their troops being starving and exhausted.
Old Glory is what I meant lol but I too like Old Faithful better
It’s not sustainable, obviously, but tactically the CSA’s industrial evacuations have considerably prolonged the war and helped prevent even worse supply crunches than they would have experienced otherwise
It isn't just that, but I'm starting to get the feeling that American military leadership just kinda blows.
I know the nature of warfare is heavily skewed towards defense so the strategic slog makes sense - but that doesn't explain how the CSA can launch so many successful smaller, tactical attacks (Occoquan, Memphis, the ten mile pushback written about here, the cavalry attack we discussed on the approaches to Chattanooga) and basically do whatever they want on the attack while the USA is like "whelp, guess we didn't see that coming!"
I'm starting to see how the in-universe narrative of superior Confederate leadership/martial skill pops up given how the CSA is fighting so well so late in the game and how the average CSA general is just better at his job (in much worse circumstances) than his American counterpart.
I mean, comparing this to IRL WWI, it isn't really that inaccurate. The CSA isn't really doing well by any standard, but it's just that there really is no way to understate just how much WWI-era warfare favors the defenders to a ridiculous degree. The back-and-forth is just a part of how it is, and the grinding path doesn't really say anything to the merits of Confederate military leadership, it's just that what they're doing is comparatively easier (and even then they're failing because of fuckups and disadvantages elsewhere). A rinse and repeat approach (of fortifying the ever-living fuck out of everything and getting all the light industry they can the heck out of dodge) the Union can't really replicate (they have to formulate a new plan for how they're going to deal with this terrain this time, every time). The US did see a lot of this coming, but the reality of the warfare they're working with means there's just genuinely no better way of doing this until tanks come along.
While I think this does, as @Devoid notes, understate the enormous advantages that defenders enjoyed during this era of warfare, to your point there is a reason why the Navy comes out of the war with a better reputation than the generals, with the exception of Black Jack
“Tanks, you say?” - John J. Pershing, presumably with laser eyes
I just looked it up - and the original "Old Glory" was a flag belongingto Captain William Driver who ran a merchant vessel during the 1820s and 30s (the flag was handsewn by his mother) which helped to popularise it. After he retired, he moved to Nashville which lead to another series of adventures once Tennessee joined the CSA (Driver was an avowed supporter of the Union, though two of his sons joined the Confederate military).
So, with the Confederacy winning the war in this ATL, I suspect there would be a nuber of ways that "Old Glory" fades from the American popular memory. Or, if we want to have some real fun - perhaps in the ATL he renames the flag to "Old Faithful" because he refuses to part with it during the war, proving his faith to the Union
The surprise to me is *not* that the GAW "Eastern" Front is being stopped up to this degree (It does *really* have a lot of similarities to the OTL WWI Western Front, with the addition of having to cross multiple parallel rivers which makes it *worse*), but rather that the Confederacy managed to make the Midlands front similar. It is *much* longer than the OTL WWI Western Front. The Trans-Mississippi fronts OTOH are *far* too large for this, and have many aspects of OTL WWI *Eastern* Front which was definitely *not* locked down to the same degree. While barbed wire was certainly used, no one even considered having barbed wire from the Baltic to the Black. (Which I'm guessing is at least 8 times longer than the WWI Western Front).
Naval Warfare allows for Heroes, Fighting in the relatively open spaces of Arizona and Texas allows for Heroes, the rest, not so much...