Well, the ignore user function is for this. Anyway, it's pretty obvious that such persons who "debate" like this have no interest in actual history.Stiltzkin wrote:1. The only thing I see is people not trying to debunk his claims or conduct a mature discussion, instead they rely on argumentum ad hominem attacks.
Indeed. In the period 1942-44 period small arms ammunition were only 3.2% of German ammunition expenditure by projectile weight while mortars, artillery and anti-tank and tank ammunition were 96.4% combined.2. If you really read his post, you should have notized that he never stated such a thing, you seem to have misinterpreted or exchanged "bayonet charging infantry" vs "field army/larger focus on ground forces".
Those internet historum forums people have no idea of how firepower was distributed in WW2.
Aircraft were usually only 3-5% of firepower according to Dupuy's estimates for 60 engagements in Italy in 43-44. While out of the 95-97% of ground firepower, in Germany's case they were distributed by projectile weight as follows:
Rocket artillery -------------------- 5.6%
Railroad artillery ------------------ 0.5%
Heavy artillery -------------------- 6.7%
Field guns ------------------------- 62.0%
Tank and anti-tank guns --------- 5.2%
Infantry guns --------------------- 9.7%
Mortars ---------------------------- 6.8%
Light arms ------------------------ 3.2%
An "infantry division" was much more than just soldiers with rifles, it involved all sorts of weapons and small arms such as rifles, machine guns and pistols were only 3.2% of the total weight of ammunition fired. Modern industrialized warfare, which matured in WW1 was mainly based on artillery and mortars and riflemen's function were essentially dedicated to occupying the frontlines and they had to dig trenches to protect themselves from artillery which was the source of the vast majority of casualties and the bulk of the expenditures of ammunition. That was true for WW1 and WW2: the basic nature of modern industrialized warfare did not change.
While on the internet people think that tanks, aircraft and rifles were all there was in terms of weapons for WW2 and they think that WW1 were just hordes of riflemen: the historical fact was these 3 sources combined constituted less than 10% of total firepower in both wars and people cannot really understand the nature of industrialized warfare that was based on area effect artillery, mortar and other explosive weapons. That's why infantry dug trenches dummy!