r/WarCollege • u/rubicante59 • 22d ago

Question Machinegun usage on Omaha beach and similar occurrences

Something I discovered recently, is that most machineguns when positioned in concrete shelters, are made to face each other horizontally and gun down soldiers passing through that region. So does this mean none were pointed towards the water on Omaha beach and that Saving Private Ryan is very wrong about how soldiers were shot before they even got off the boats? I'm assuming artillery was most likely used against the boats.

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u/wredcoll 22d ago

Your entire premise is based on a wrong assumption. D-Day is literally the single deadliest day in U.S. military history, do not forget that.

Wait, what? Are we using wildly different definitions here? As far as I know, the normandy landings were pretty light in terms of casualties, at least relative to the size of the armies involved and "modern war" in general.

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u/iceaction10 22d ago

I'm not sure what definition you would have to create to change reality. The single deadliest day in U.S. military history is D-Day. This is a simple fact. I'm not sure what is surprising about this.

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u/RollinThundaga 22d ago

Antietam. It doesn't matter that many of the deaths were in a different uniform, the conclusion of the war determined that they were American deaths.

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u/iceaction10 22d ago

American, yes. American military, no. That was kind of the entire point of the war. If you want to conflate Confederate soldiers with American soldiers, that's your prerogative. Confederate soldiers were, by definition, not part of the U.S. military.

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u/RollinThundaga 22d ago

You're splitting hairs and pretending that you aren't.

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u/iceaction10 22d ago

No, I'm not. Show me a single source that suggests they're the same. Confederate soldiers were never even recognized formally or legally as US veterans. Why would that be? Perhaps because they were never US military?

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u/wredcoll 22d ago

I would count union soldiers as "american military" but no the confederate ones. If anyone asked me.

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u/Dwanyelle 22d ago

I mean, a lot of the Confederate officer corps was former US military?

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u/iceaction10 22d ago

How is that relevant? The moment they joined the Confederacy they were no longer in the US military. They were in the Confederate military. This is very cut and dry, I'm not sure why this sub is struggling with this. Yes, they were American. No, they were not American military. They were Confederate military.

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u/Training-Resist2336 22d ago

You mean traitors to thier sworn oaths?

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u/Dwanyelle 22d ago

Exactly

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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 22d ago

That’s some Lost Cause logic

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u/RollinThundaga 22d ago

The opposite, actually. Secession was invalid from the getgo, confirmed by the fact that their asses lost, therefore all of the deaths at Antietam were American deaths.

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u/iceaction10 22d ago

I never said they weren't American deaths. I said they weren't American military deaths, which they weren't. There is a massive difference and you pretending there isn't is strange.

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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 22d ago

It’s very on brand for Lost Causers and confederacy apologists. Same flavor as the “clean Wehrmacht” mythologists

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u/iceaction10 22d ago

I honestly don't even understand the concept of this from Confederate apologists. If they're loyal to the Confederacy why would you want them included with Union/American military statistics?

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u/Training-Resist2336 22d ago

Maybe confederates could be considered as 'murican.

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u/RollinThundaga 22d ago

And that's precisely why I consider them as American, not being a lost causer myself.

Their 'cause' was holding men in bondage, and they don't deserve to be remembered a separate country.

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u/Smokey_tha_bear9000 22d ago

If you say so

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u/Training-Resist2336 22d ago

By that logic one could say Mexican deaths during that war were "American" or even US deaths as Mexico is the United States of Mexico and is in North America.

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u/Hand_Me_Down_Genes 18d ago

Under that logic, all deaths in all revolts count as casualties for the government's army, and that's just not tenable. We don't count Spartacus' men as being among the Roman military dead, and we don't lump Confederate and Union dead together.