The Somme and Verdun

[Cannae]

Hi all, I have a few questions regarding the above battles.

1. Do you know of the terrain at the battlefields?
2. How many men were in reserve for each phase of the battle?
3. At what rate of fire did the artillery and infantry fire at for each side, and what was their usual accuracy rate? What range could they reach?
4. For air support, how much flight time did each side's aircraft have? How much could've been sent to the battle?
4. How many casualties did each division suffer?

Thanks,

Cannae

[jluetjen]

Hi;
As far as your questions about the terrain and a couple of examples of the casualties (both British/Canadian, as well as an example of a German unit in the same area), the documentary "Battle Of The Somme - The True Story" appears to be good resource. Personally I think that this is one of the best documentaries about the Somme that I've seen from a historical perspective in so much as it tries to tie the big picture to the personal level. It also doesn't consider the German side of the battle in some distant, passive sense -- but instead looks at everything from all sides to understand how the pieces fit together. I was shocked to see how much of a hole the British/Canadian positions were located in. I've never been in the military, but they are pretty obviously a very bad location from which to launch an attack.

Here's a link. Note that in the auto-play sections 6, 7 and 8 are not in the correct order.

http://youtu.be/KgPcko8XLKE