Largest number of casualties / single battle.

Well, I thought by just including combatants it might give a better indication of who fought a better battle. Killing civilians was easier than soldiers.

 

Did you find what you were looking for? What are you building? ...A secret maybe?

 

It has been brought to my attention that one of my posts here may be interpreted in a way that I had no intention of portraying. I want all to know that I don't feel this thread is disrespectful, I just want our readers and participants to remember that as we read of thousands of people killed or lost in single day battles that we remember each one has a name, I know those on this forum are very respectful of those military and civilians that died in the war. I hope that from knowing these figures, that people may find, we can learn something that will help prevent these kind of events for future generations. My apologies to any and all who may have misunderstood the wording or intentions of my earlier post.
Friends,
John

 

I understand, I think, but that is still going to be difficult to "nail down" due to the reported, suspected, and simply ignored fatalities by either or both opponents. On the eastern front the two sides exaggerated their opponents losses, and down-played their own, so the true numbers probably fall somewhere in between the two stats.

I just watched a special on the last sortie of the Yamato, and both it and its Task Force Two were pretty much wiped out in a single episode. And between the Yamato and its escorts of a cruiser and destroyers, over 4,000 sailors were lost, and fewer than 500 pulled from the sea post battle.

That is pretty amazing group of deaths, number-wise in a single day's battle.

 

What do you mean by casualties? Normally that would include both dead and wounded. Sometimes it includes POWs. One day battles may also have a fair number of MIAs who may or maynot show up later as either casualties or not.

There is also the question of what is a battle? Was the first day of Barbarrosa "a" battle or many for instance. Either view point is valid but we need to decide which to use (or both).

 

John, I looked beyond the wording to the emotion you were expressing regarding numbers representing individuals who had families and who may still have those who miss them. Seeing their graves or memorials to the missing upon which their names are written brings numbers lost in battles and wars into perspective. For those who have actually seen a friend lost in battle must be able to imagine that loss magnified over and over.

From an analytical/statistical viewpoint the thread is an intersting discussion - but it is good to sometimes stop to remember what those numbers represent. IMHO

 

That's exactly what I meant, thank you! I served aboard USS Forrestal CV-59 in the 1980's, in 1967 129 men were killed in a fire. Many people joked about the name being the "USS Forest Fire", but every day I would walk by the plaque in Hanger Bay 1 and read the names as I past. I quit calling my ship the Forest Fire after seeing the names over and over again.
Unfortunately, unless there is a memorial near-by to where you live it becomes easy to look past the names and see the numbers. When you remember there are names the numbers truly gain significance exponentially.
This is a very interesting thread, and I don't know if it is really possible to know the true numbers from a "single day" of battle. As it was stated earlier, sometimes cassualties are counted through the whole battle and many statistics are added into the cassualty reports KIA/MIA/wounded etc. Then there are those who are wounded today, and die tomorrow or the next day, how do you count them?

 

Casualties of the battle of Jutland:Germany:KIA :2115, WIA:8O
Britain:KIA:5672,WIA :65;POW :177

 

If we are talking ww2 then Stalingrad, Leningrad, and the battle of Berlin are definitely at the top, even the most conservative estimates for all 3 is a 1 mil plus. The Pacific was in of itself a different war. Different fighting strategies and different weapons were used.

 

Battle of Fromelles...Australia received 5500 casualties and 2000 dead...in one night!

 

can't go beyond figures from guiness. the worse siege was the siege of leningrad wherein around 1 million defenders and civilians died. the bloodiest battle was stalingrad wherein the germans lost 350,000 (95,000 surrendered but most died afterwards.) the soviets had 600,000 casualties but many of these survived. the civilian population, counted pre-battle with at least 600,000, disappeared. only 20,000 were found alive when the siege was lifted.

 

Several battles and loads of dead and wounded on both sides: Kharkov.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kharkov

 

Let's also not forget about the German allies during Stalingrad. Romania and Hungary were effectively knocked out of the war after the battle as well, not to mention the Italian 8th army which lost around 100k+

Stalingrad sealed the fate of Germany's allies in the East.

 

Seems to me that in the battles with massive losses there were some huge miscalculations beforehand, and here´s one of them:

Goodwood

[SIZE=10.5pt]Most of the data is collected from Ripley´s book "Steel storm Western front battles", and the Reynolds´ books on "I SS in Normandy" and "Sons of the Reich IInd SS corps in Normandy and Arnhem"[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]The bombing of the Caen area was the name for a successful bombing mission. Sure, they did actually what was asked. 1,000 British and some 400+ US planes dropped bombs in Caen area. And yes, the Luftwaffe troops that were the first in line were hammered dead, tanks flew in the air.As well, don´t forget, 3,000 Caen civilians were killed. But the German main reserves were practically "untouched".In that sense all the bombs droppped did not do their job I think. Just "raised the British soldier´s morale" as they saw everything being bombed to kingdom come.Unfortunately for them the morale sank fast as tank started breewing up 200/day.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]The bombing went as planned but it didn´t make the expected results. Or how is it possbile that the attack was stopped and the British lost some 450 tanks and 6,000 dead soldiers ( I´m not sure on the latter figure if it was casualties or KIA+MIA ).

I think the plan was too much based on the bombing´s as there were loads of other points that made the attack totally sad-looking:

1. the start up point was small, all the troops didn´t fit there, a traffic jam. As well four bridges available only caused that tanks went ahead but artillery followed very late behind.I guess by the first evening there was a huge traffic jam at the starting point still.[/SIZE]

2. As well the first phase for the tanks was to pass the British mine fields one by one and the clearing of the route had to be done seconds before the beginning of the attack.

3. There was an airman in the tanks who was supposed to contact the allied aircraft where to attack, except that the Germans ( who knew to destroy the commander tanks first naturally ) killed his tank first, and later on nobody else suitable was found to the job. So the group of planes had to do on their own.

4. The reconnaissance did not notice LAH tanks come in ( and more tanks destruction happened ) as the Panthers and Stug´s and others could shoot the allied tanks in the hull-down position.

By the way, von Luck mentions that the British did not do reconnaissance further than 7 kilometers behind the lines??? Can it be?

 

Perhaps in the end Battle of Berlin? 1 million German soldiers and civilians, and some Red Army soldiers 500,000 as dead and wounded?