The Battle of the Somme has gained notoriety as an example of the futility of offensives in the trench warfare on the Western Front. Are the claims that soldiers strolled across the no-man's-land in neat rows true? Did the British really expect the artillery bombardment to break the German defenses? And did the Germans really cut the British down in swathes? Furthermore, was the offensive flawed in concept, or execution? Had the British learned from the previous year, and did they learn from the Somme?
More can always be said about the subject, but we have a range of fantastic answers on very similar subjects:
For starters, /u/DuxBelisarius has an excellent answer on the Battle of the Somme here. A similar answer, also by him, can be found here (it's much shorter, but I highly recommend reading his full answer!)
/u/Gimpalong directly address if soldiers strolled across no-man's-land in neat rows here.
/u/military_history has an excellent answer about "Trench Storming" here.
/u/NMW has a great answer about "massed infantry charges" here.
I touch upon British infantry tactics in this post here.