BattleField Detectives

The Soldiers have been told to expect only minimal resistance. The huge attack was supposed to overwhelm the Germans, instead it is a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. In only one day nearly 60,000 British soldiers are either killed or wounded. It is the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. Why was the first day of the Battle of the Somme such a disaster?

Operation Market Garden was a daring Allied plan to drive deep behind enemy lines into German held Holland. The intention is to end the Second World War by Christmas. But far from being a decisive master stroke, Market Garden is a disaster, one of the Allies worst defeats. The Question is why? Using ground breaking new research, Battlefield Detectives investigates whether Market Garden was a daring plan that almost succeeded, or whether it was fatally flawed from the start.

Far from being the final step in the conquest of the USSR, Stalingrad proved a bloodbath. Half a million Germans were killed and almost three times as many Russians lost their lives. Total casualties are estimated to be over two million. The German Army was modern, well-trained and well-led, with state of the art military equipment, high morale and a string of victories behind it. By comparison the Red Army was inexperienced, old-fashioned and ill-equipped. So how did the Russians win? Legend has it that it was ‘General Winter’ who defeated the German Army - but forensic analysis and historical research show that coping with freezing weather was not the only ace in the Russians’ packs.

In 1967 the tension in the Middle East had neared boiling point. Border incidents between Israel and Syria, Egypt, and Jordan had increased massively during the early 1960s, with Palestinian guerrilla groups actively supported by Syria. Fighting on three fronts, against the combined might of five different armies, Israel secured a stunning victory in a mere six days. So how did this tiny state manage to overcome an Arab enemy which had twice as many soldiers, three times as many tanks and four times as many airplanes? Field testing of key Israeli weapons and analysis of battlefield strategy on both sides shows how this extraordinary victory was achieved.

Before dawn on Sunday April 6th 1862, shots rang out near Shiloh, on the west bank of the Tennessee River. A Confederate army had launched a surprise attack on their unsuspecting Union enemy. The Confederates had chosen the battlefield. They had chosen the moment to attack. And they achieved almost total strategic and tactical surprise. Twelve hours later they seemed to be in a commanding position – but on the next day they withdrew in disarray. For nearly 150 years Confederate failure has been blamed on the fact that they lost valuable time at a place called the Hornet’s nest – where a detachment of Union soldiers held the line. But now forensic history is uncovering a very different story of why things went so badly wrong for the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh.

Two thousands years ago, Jewish freedom fighters defied the Roman legions at Masada for three years, choosing death over slavery. Or did they? We join a team of experts as they use the latest scientific tools to piece together a new, and infinitely more controversial, version of the siege of Masada. Our scientists and archaeologists pose questions that have remained unasked for centuries. They ask how the Jewish defenders were able to hold out against such odds, also questioning how the Romans managed to conduct a siege in such a hostile environment.

For four long months during the summer of 1940, the RAF and the German Luftwaffe fought an epic battle in the blue skies and over the green fields of south east England. The Battle of Britain was the first major battle to be fought entirely in the air. It was the largest and most sustained bombing campaign yet attempted and the first real test of the strategic bombing theories that had emerged since the First World War. For more than sixty years the story of the Battle of Britain has been the story of an unprepared nation winning against overwhelming odds, a tale of heroism, of a handful of plucky pilots and of the battle winning Spitfire aircraft. Scientists, historians and veterans reveal that in fact Britain was far from unprepared. What were the secret systems and tactics which forced the Germans to withdraw from battle and led them to postpone and then cancel, their plans for invasion?

New research shows that Britain's most famous naval triumph, th 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, was anything but inevitable. Far from executing a carefully developed plan, Nelson sailed straight at the enemy broadsides based on little more planning than a recently discovered "back of the envelope" tactical sketch.

In episode 6, Battlefield Detectives: Massacre at Waterloo asks - was there more to Napoleon's defeat than the tactics and fighting prowess of the Allies? Waterloo has always been seen as a tactical victory for the Duke of Wellington, his small but highly trained Allied army outfighting the veteran soldiers of Napoleon's Grand Army. Now the latest scientific techniques are shedding crucial light on Napoleon's campaign. And a dramatic archaeological discovery is helping answer the central question: what went wrong for Napoleon at Waterloo? The program uncovers why, for the first and only time in their history, Napoleon's Imperial Guard broke and fled from the battlefield.

The sinking of the Spanish Armada in the summer of 1588 has been attributed to English heroism, Spanish incompetence, and bad weather. Now archaeologists are working with oceanographers, meteorologists, and ship design experts to uncover the real reasons.

Researchers use satellite technology and archaelological finds to unearth the truth about what happened at Balaklava during the most celebrated battle of the Crimean War. How disastrous was the British cavalry charge - and who were teh actual heroes in the defense of Balaklava?