bocage

[dieseltaylor]

Wodin go here

BF thread

14 pages of it with links to another thread on the same subject ...I think

[JasonC]

Why did the Germans get their heads handed to them every time they tried to attack Americans in Normandy?

One, because the Americans were not pussies, as some try to pretend. When German armor ran into them, they didn't run screaming or die hopelessly in obsolete ronsons. They grabbed bazookas and made roadblocks and called in artillery, while reserves rushed to the penetrated sector. All concerned then hunted the Germans, who found that "there are some parts of New York I'd have to advise you not to invade".

Two, because the Germans typically underestimated the American forces opposite and especially their depth. Often they attacked with little idea what they were supposed to accomplish after passing the US front lines.

Doctrine waxes eloquent about the joys of "overrunning" supposedly "soft" formations in the enemy "rear areas", and likes to pretend any artillery unit or HQ that sees a tank evaporates or surrenders, always without loss to the magically superior maneuvering force with its elan and initiative yada yada. But its all the purest guff. A battery of 105s in position with HEAT is not a "soft target", it is a company sized infantry formation with dug in machineguns and main weapons equal to any anti-tank battery. A headquarters is a company sized mass with reserves at its fingertips and bazookas by the crateload out back.

The US typically used 2 up and 1 back formations at multiple echelons, and every formation type had 4th and 5th elements for fire support weapons and leftovers of one kind or another. When such a unit is attacking, rotating its active roles and assigning them to only its main maneuver elements, it presents only about half its true strength, sometimes less. And as you drive deeper into it, you face another doubling of forces encountered for a given bit of front, as the back bits of neighboring units slide over to your area.

Then there was excessive emphasis on using armor to attack. It was considered the real essence of armor that it be employed tactically in an offensive manner. Which is all very well in a manual, but in the field it means a Panther with 100mm plus front armor shows its 40mm sides the instant it passes the US front line. Turning every short 75mm on a Sherman, every towed 57mm ATG in the infantry, and every bazooka into a lethal tank killer. Under 200m, the US 3 inch on M10s and towed AT battalions would also go through the turret front.

On defense with long lines of sight and picked keyhole positions, a Panther might snipe all day without a care. Attacking into terrain with initial LOS often 200m or less, amid scads of such weapons, it was just another medium tank.

The US also rapidly got soft firepower dominance. They had more infantry on the ground, supporting weapons companies whose MGs work fine in position but are hard to advance with, AA batteries and halftracks dotting the landscape, 50 cals mounted on every other vehicle.

And lots of artillery on call. 105mm battalions surging to fire 5000 rounds a day, every 155 in the corps in range, all of them available to any sergeant with a radio if the target justified the rounds. A single overrun battalion at Mortain called in corps level fires for 3 days on an entire Panzer corps surging around its isolated hilltop.

All of which acted to strip the German infantry off of the tanks, depriving them of combined arms and of aggresive scouting.

So you have a platoon of buttoned Panthers roaming through unscouted sunken lanes, every infantryman they pass reaching for a bazooka or a radio. Jeeps and scout cars run from them and tell the TDs exactly where they are. A pair or platoon of open topped TDs with alert commanders knowing what they are looking for, hunt for a view and get one. Nearly always getting first shot. At ranges where a shot is a kill, pretty much.

Incidentally, the forces the Americans faced were not pikers. The FJ corps on the road to St. Lo were some of the toughest fighters the Germans had. 17th SS was new but fought very well. 2SS and Lehr were about the best the Germans had. Some of the infantry was also quite good. 352 was as well armed as the FJ are depicted in CM, for instance, with every squad equipped to the 2 LMG level.

The Americans also faced as much armor as the Brits did, they just faced it at different times. There was a little "switch hitting" on the German side, too. But basically each faced 1000 AFVs over the course of the campaign. The Brits just faced that in "front loaded" fashion, while the Americans faced roughly half of it in July on the way to St. Lo, and the other half after the breakout began, trying to stop it but failing.

In detail, the US faced 17th SS, a StuG brigade with the FJ, another army StuG brigade working with the IDs, Panzer Lehr from early July and 2 SS about the same time - all before the breakout. 2nd Panzer switch hit on the inter-allied boundary, facing the US 1st Infantry division for much of the campaign, though it also lent its Panther battalion to the Brit sector when it first arrived, for Epsom

Later after the breakout, the US faced the 116th PD, in reserve until then and thrown in to try to stop the American armor, another StuG brigade with the same mission, 2nd Panzer, and a strong KG from 1SS - all also involved in the Mortain counterattack attempt, which used around 400 tanks, 2/3rds of what the Germans had left in the theater. They got halved and repulsed in a few days, and did not even delay the closure of the Falaise pocket. Last, some of the same formations fought to hold open the southern shoulder of that pocket against US ADs hundreds of miles east of the original Normandy battlefield.

In all, the Brits faced about 1200 German AFVs in Normandy and the US faced about 1000. Only about 200 got away, each of the Allied forces having ground down its round thousand. More of the US bag happened toward the end, but it was just as large - and incidentally, equal to the US's own armor losses in the campaign. A ratio that continued, with the US outscoring the Germans in armor kills in the early Lorraine fighting as well, and about matching them in the Bulge.

[dieseltaylor]

The 506th Fighter Bomber Squadron, ordered out, got its final briefing from the Division Air Support Officer while in the air, and hit the enemy force shortly after 2105. The 116thís men were instructed to mark front lines with red panels and undershirts, for the target area was close in. The air blow broke up the counterattack completely, many Germans running into the American lines to escape the bombs. Air-ground cooperation had functioned at high speed, and under difficult circumstances, in a critical moment for the 29th Division. Not the least result of the strike was to restore morale and confidence in the isolated battalions.

Ah morale. Note how late the airforce were operating!

[dieseltaylor]

Reading through the Hyper war linky of Kingfish I was struck by the description of St Lo as a city and as a town. For non-Europeans it could be confusing as in fact the population was about 11000. Also population density would be quite high so the size[area] of the town [a city by history] would be very much smaller than perhaps people might imagine.

The reason I mention it is when a town/village is called for in CMAK and generated it rarely has any resemblance to an Italian OR a French type. A big booboo by Bfront.

[coe]

First of all thanks for someone posting the link. I was out a few days. That is puzzling that the Germans who did deep penetrations and the like didn't seem to know what to do when they broke through - or perhaps the breakthroughs were not on a large enough scale. On the other hand, I'd like to know of accounts where allies broke through but there was a large german force being called up with artillery to strip away the accompanying infantry? or did that not happen due to German shortages?

But it is interesting because you might expect the German formations to have fought a bit better, or with more tactical skill based on total war experience of their generals and colonels etc. This is not to say that the Americans or British were dummies. I also remember some accounts of the 12th SS doing some rather costly un-coordinated attacks against the british and canadians early on...that was puzzling too.

Conan

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by coe:

I also remember some accounts of the 12th SS doing some rather costly un-coordinated attacks against the british and canadians early on...that was puzzling too.

These were due in part because the Germans underestimated the quality of the Canadian troops defending Norrey and Bretteville. The officers of the 12th SS were all veterans, yes, but of the Russian front. Meyer, Mohnke, Krausse, these guys all learned the tricks of the trade against the generally ill-trained and equipped Russians.

They then get to Normandy, and flush with confidence from their own victory at Buron they go head first at the Canadians in Norrey and Brettville, and have their asses handed to them. Not once, but four times. I believe they lost more Panthers in that 12-hour period than in any other single battle during the Normandy campaign.

[Andreas]

Dandelion's post really made an impression on you, eh?

As for not knowing what to do when breaking through, I am not really aware of any situation where the German forces in Normandy achieved what seems to be called 'operational freedom', i.e. the ability to frolick about the enemy's rear at leisure. The break-ins were tactical in nature, never really beyond the first line of defence. As Kingfish and Jason indicate, the unwillingness of the western allied forces to be terribly impressed by the swagger of the Auftragstaktik-driven Übersoldiers of the Wehrmacht then had something to do with none of them getting further. Plus, there just was not a lot of space there to work with.

All the best

Andreas

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Dandelion's post really made an impression on you, eh?

Every one of them.