"Dumbest" attack?

The plan to send an expeditionary force in 1940 to Finland by Britain and France so as to have a war with the USSR at the same time as Germany!

 

That's a good one, Squeeth!

My offer is Unternehmen Bodenplatte.

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The useless destruction of the city of Rotterdam which happened after the surrender of the Dutch army.

 

During the New Guinea campaign MacAuthur sent an infantry regiment (sorry, don't have the number and division right off 35th ID?) across the Owen Stanley mountian range on what was marked as a trail on his maps to outflank the Japanese at Buna. The regiment set off on this march finding the trail didn't exist. Over the next month and half they fought their way through jungle over a 12,000 ft + mountian range losing nearly 2/3rds of the regiment to disease and deprivation.
Worse, when the survivors arrived at Buna they found the rest of the division had been flown in weeks before and were already occupying the area they were supposed to take. That ranks in my book as one of the most idiotic operations of the war.

 

Spring Awakening.

Operation Frühlingserwachen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I would have to say it would be the Liberation of Manila by US forces.
Manila was declared an open city and the Imperial Japanese troops was in the process of leaving. When US officers learned that members of the Imperial Japanese Navy weren't going to leave, the US decided to use artillery and bombers to pound the Japanese. The US succeeded but they destroyed an entire city in the process. The devastation was described as almost like what happened to Warsaw.

Tens of thousands of Filipino civilians were killed in what I view was an unneccesary battle. Whole families were wiped out by Japanese bayonets and indiscriminate US artillery. Personally, when I think and read the accounts of this battle, I feel agitated.

 

I would say the first attack by the US 104th Infantry Division. Attached to the British they attacked toward Breda and the Mark-canal. Poor training and leadership resulted in dramatic and preventable losses.

 

Pearl Harbour. Lost the whole war for the axis. Also count Op. Barbarossa.

 

The USSR attacking Finland a.k.a. Winter War. Not the idea ( perhaps ) but how it was led and how the troops were prepared in the Red Army.

 

Stalin's decision to attack Vyazma totally against Zhukov's advise as he warned of a massacre for the Red Army which is what happend the first 3 times the assault was launched!

 

One thing just struk me. Why's this in the weapons section?

 

Kursk, enough said.

 

No. The original plan wasn't bad at all. Keep the initiative, lop off a salient to shorten the lines, bag another few hundred thousand POWs, show who's boss, etc.

Problem started when the Sovs understood where the attack was going to fall, decided to make a stand and screw the Germs with a counter-offensive. We know the rest of the story

 

After thinking more about this, I would have to say it would the US landing at Omaha. Casualties at the landing could've have been minimized if the planners had done a few things differently. Fortunately in the end, the landing was successful but at a heavy price.

Companies that landed at the "right" beaches were almost wiped out to a man. These were the units that landed right in front of the fortified draws.
But the units that landed in the "wrong" sectors barely suffered any casualties and made it off the beach in good order. They had accidently landed away from the fortified draws.

Also US Army planners in Europe disregarded the advice from veterans of amphibious landings in the Pacific Theater. The attitude was that Europe was the big league while the Pacific was the boondocks.

 

Not really a dumb 'attack',but a dumb 'defense'. Hitler shouldn't have ordered German Troops to stand fast in Normandy. He should have authorized units to retreat and get organized. Another of Hitlers dumb orders was to make the Panzers under his control only. That pretty much made the outcome of Overlord inevitable.

 

the most dumbest attack would be where the soviets used dogs to blow up tanks lets say they didnt go for the germans.

 

Market garden was viable but over ambitious if they had gone for one less bridge or the middle bridge had been captured by the US paratroopers intact then the operation might have worked in its entirety. The sheer bad luck of a whole tank division being rested near a key objective was some what an act of god though decent intelligence and analysis should have spotted it and dealt with the issue. The russians would have considered it a succes only the western allies who cared about losses a lot more see it as a disaster. The Soviets would simply see the fact that the Germans had gutted critical and irreplacable units to overun the Paratroopers and hold the advance whilst losing critical ground most of market garden worked and the allied losse were a tiny fraction of those of the German army in the Ardennes. The allied losses were made good in a few months the german losses were never fully replaced.

 

Russia had room if it was the size of France it would have fallen in 1941 its poor road infrastructure made supply impossible and rapid advance over 300 miles impossible. Most of russias roads were mud tracks uselss for armoured advance most of the year. The retreating soviets destroyed their railways in the captured zones to deny them to the Germans yet retained them in their core territories allowing russian reserves to be moved relatively rapidly to face developing threats. Invading russia was a bad idea but invading russia without a safe maritime supply route via the mediteranean and black sea to the crimea meant tha in the war of logistics the Germans never really had a hope.

 

The Dieppe raid.

 

My vote for the dumbest attack would be any time the Japanese yelled Bonzai and charged a machine gun front on.

Though it did work on occasion....kind of