Slaughter. Tank spotting.

[DavidFields]

JasonC's post on realistic 1941 battles gave me a thought (but I won't clutter up his thread with it):

How much of the "action" that, say, AFVs saw was not even a battle, but a slaughter? Given a fixed position, or presumed hostile structure, with inadequate anti-tank defenses, wouldn't the successful tactic be to just stay at distance and heave HE until the position was pulverized? An unbalanced slaughter, is, after all, the ultimate tactical military goal.

My guess would be such actions were common. But since it is no "fun" to play them, we thus undervalue a unit such as the MkIV--a good, mobile, HE chucker which is immune to most junk weaponry.

(On a similar vein, could tanks that had radios rely on distant infantry spotters to direct their fire? I was watching yet another "Hollywood German assault"--you know, a few tanks, with a bunch of infantry running next to them, over an open field, and they get all shot up and retreat. I was thinking how unnecessary it was for the infantry to be there--except to spot for the tanks. I know the commander can be unbuttoned, and I think I recall AFVs having some sort of phone for someone riding on, or next to, the tank. But those are both hazardous ways of spotting. Did they ever have a set-up, like with indirect artillery, where infantry, in cover, in a place with good line of sight, with binoculars, radioed spotting instructions?)

[McIvan]

A lot of action against infantry positions in the desert was of that nature. The 2nd NZ Division had several battalions overrun during the course of a couple of years when caught without tank support.

Basically, the Germans would wear down the integral 25 pounder positions at maximum range for most of a day, close in once these were dealt with and knock out the 2pdrs and then overrun the position. There was very little the ordinary infantry could do about it, if the Germans had sufficient time and ammunition.

[costard]

I think the problem with the FO's was that radios were generally scarce, and that the frequencies had to be assigned and protected. Coverage was nothing like as good as we take for granted in the era of mobile phones, and the need for secure communications to the arty was paramount: an incorrectly given target, whether by accident (incompetence) or design (espionage, disguise and interception), costs too much. Not much in the way of mobile artillery was available either - and the stuff that was available didn't have the ammo loadout that a battery of guns was supplied with - so it was the tactical commander that called the shots there: he decided which targets were suitable and issued the fire orders.

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[DavidFields]

McIvan: thank you, and that is the "point" of tactical movement, of course. (I assume you mean "hours" or "days", instead of years.) Bloody unpleasant to be on the losing side.

Costard: you make an excellent point. It is essentially anachronistic to think about modern communication, when hand signals, from people without body armor, were normal. (Anyone else freak a bit seeing WW2 movies with soldiers in fabric, compared to Middle Ages and current body armor?)

Adam: The deciding factor being?

[Cuirassier]

I may be wrong, but what I think Adam is getting at is that concentrated, armored attackers almost always faced inadequate anti-tank defenses during the breakthrough fight. Why? Because defenders need coverage, and have to spread out their limited AT assets to cover possible attacker routes. AT guns are also not very mobile, and even when concentrated, their LOS lines can't overlap everywhere. So the attacker breaks in where the defense is thin and backs off where it is too strong, sending artillery shells instead.

Concentrated armored attacks were stopped in practice by arriving counter-concentrated armored reserves (arriving in 2-3 days typically) and, to a lesser extent, infantry depth and heavy artillery concentrations (something the Americans did quite well). The breakthrough fight was always a breeze in practice. Defeating arriving reserves was the challenge.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

How much of the "action" that, say, AFVs saw was not even a battle, but a slaughter? Given a fixed position, or presumed hostile structure, with inadequate anti-tank defenses, wouldn't the successful tactic be to just stay at distance and heave HE until the position was pulverized? An unbalanced slaughter, is, after all, the ultimate tactical military goal.

the problem is getting a target to fire at. enemy won't offer targets as long as they don't need to. just firing from distance won't kill the enemy and you are just begging to receive arty fires and offer enemy a good chance to react to your attack (activation of reserves etc).

"blind" fire at enemy positions would most likely be used just as a feint to distract the enemy, or at best some sort of supporting overwatch, while the actual attacking force flanks and storms the positions.

you need to take those enemy positions anyway. firing from distance won't accomplish it. you need to go in.

(On a similar vein, could tanks that had radios rely on distant infantry spotters to direct their fire? I was watching yet another "Hollywood German assault"--you know, a few tanks, with a bunch of infantry running next to them, over an open field, and they get all shot up and retreat. I was thinking how unnecessary it was for the infantry to be there--except to spot for the tanks. I know the commander can be unbuttoned, and I think I recall AFVs having some sort of phone for someone riding on, or next to, the tank. But those are both hazardous ways of spotting. Did they ever have a set-up, like with indirect artillery, where infantry, in cover, in a place with good line of sight, with binoculars, radioed spotting instructions?)

infantry and tanks support each other. yes, part of the reason for infantry to be there is to act as eyes for the tanks. infantry would use things like tracers and flares to point out targets for tanks. to simplify things, tanks take care of enemy machinegun nets and other strongpoints, infantry takes care of mines and enemy close range units.

line of sight is so bad in real world that you typically need to go in before you can see what's in there. spotting from distance is not too useful. recon helps if you have time.

in the context of the first quoted paragraph, tanks would both suppress enemy (fire from distance) and help storm their positions. infantry would clear and hold those positions.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

I may be wrong, but what I think Adam is getting at is that concentrated, armored attackers almost always faced inadequate anti-tank defenses during the breakthrough fight.

i disagree. the defenses were there and they were a bitch to deal with. that's why you do your best to figure out enemy AT positions before the attack and use a great number of arty shells & air strikes at located & potential positions. when you don't or can't, it's usually the attacking armor that gets slaughtered, save for extreme cases.

The breakthrough fight was always a breeze in practice.

only in the limited few extreme strategic level cases. otherwise it was bloody and ugly.

sure it was a bit easier early war against relatively poorly armed infantry, but by late war it's hard.

[Cuirassier]

URC,

i disagree. the defenses were there and they were a bitch to deal with. that's why you do your best to figure out enemy AT positions before the attack and use a great number of arty shells & air strikes at located & potential positions. when you don't or can't, it's usually the attacking armor that gets slaughtered, save for extreme cases.

I was talking in the operational sense. Sure it was tough tactically. Men got scared, killed, had to sweat and bleed etc. But in the operational sense, the breakthrough fight was easy, for tank-heavy formations. Sure there are a few cases it wasn't, but that was not the norm. Look at the souther prong of the Kursk offensive for example. The 2 SS PK hits the prepared 23 GRC and take casualties for sure. But in two days they have cut through and are completely effective, in the operational sense. Its not until the nearly Panzer Army sized 5th GTA arrives before the 2 SS is blunted.

The only cases where you see tank-heavy forces repulsed in the breakthrough fight is early war British and Soviet attacks. But this is not because the tactical defenses were tough. Just as result of poor attacker combined arms. Once the allies fixed these issues, they generally broke through as easy as the Germans had.

only in the limited few extreme strategic level cases. otherwise it was bloody and ugly.

sure it was a bit easier early war against relatively poorly armed infantry, but by late war it's hard.

I disagree. Breakthrough was easy, fighting reserves was hard. All you have to do is compare operations to see this. The Germans romp in Barbarossa but lose Kursk. Why? The Soviet mech arm is broken in 1941 but works just fine by 1943. Another example. The Soviets romp in Bagration but are smashed during Mars. Why? The Germans have no armored reserves to speak of for Bagration, but have a bunch of Panzer divisions for Mars. Tactical infantry AT defenses could sting at that level. But they did not stop tank army sized formations from breaking into the operational depth and encircling things. That took counter-concentrated tank reserves. And that is where the real fight happened.

[JasonC]

Combined arms is all about creating a fire dilemma for the defender.

If all you do is sit back and fire artillery shells at the enemy's general location, you can and will slaughter him without loss --- unless he is dug in. If he is dug in sufficiently, he just goes deep in his holes and every shell after the first few flights is wasted.

No single threat is without a simple counter. But there is no counter at all to the complex multiple threat wielded reactively to pick apart each piece of the defense. It simply works, when its prereqs are met. The defender needs to counter-concentrate himself, not just adopt a different stance or tactic or reveal a different weapon.

On ATG defenses, the only times they actually stop serious armor attacks cold are (1) when the attacker lacks armor artillery cooperation (happened a lot early war and occasionally late, with shoestring attempts especially) or (2) on limited and specifically "thickened" frontage, "scar tissue", or (3) the attacker doesn't have the odds to be attacking in the first place.

Otherwise you just put a full panzer regiment on a frontage of 1-2 kilometers and you are in the house in an hour. Nobody could line their entire frontage with a sufficient concentration of ATGs to stop massed armor. There are a few occasions early war when that fails on a gun-front, all of them cases of bad intel and decisions about where to attack, and usually doctrinal failure to get artillery cooperation, as well.

Dug in gun positions properly hit by arty during the armor attack and with the armor concentrated, just never actually stop them.

The armor does get stopped, but it happens deep in the defensive zone, due to arriving reserves etc as Cuirassier said.

Back on the original point, however, the combat power of armor does not come from the even duels where it exchanges off with the enemy. That is a sometimes-necessary attritional special case that then allows armor to function afterward, for the side that has some left. If one side isn't using its armor effectively on defense you can get the real combat power of armor even without that happening first (doctrinal issues are the main driver of that, early not knowing how to use armor for defense and sometimes, late, thinking its point is only to attack).

If you look at the loss profile through time of a typical US independent tank battalion, the sort assigned to support the infantry divisions, what you find is they lost something like 1/2 to their full strength on 2 occasions, Normandy and the Bulge, when they faced full strength German armor formations, operationally speaking. On a time scale of a month in either case, and obviously only if the unit was engaged for that part of the campaign.

The whole rest of the war, tank losses run about 1 per week. With runners kept at something like 80% of TOE (the US was exceptionally "rich" on that score, BTW, Germans and Russians ran them much much lower). The ETO campaign is about 10 months. Virtually all the losses happen in the tough 1/5th of the time, and for the other 4/5ths of the time the battalion is engaged and helping its assigned infantry formation, without losing much of anything.

They have tanks lost to mechanical causes driving across France, certainly. A few formations have significant fights outside those two periods e.g. Lorraine or Aachen, though the armor losses in both are modest compared to Normandy or the Bulge. But a typical unit narrative records 1 Sherman lost to a faust at some roadblock this week, and 2 lost to hidden PAK that week, and another burnt out after hitting an AT mine some other week, while two more just lost tracks and were repaired - or whatever.

Now, that whole 4/5ths of the time, attacking infantry regimental combat teams are getting penny-packets of tank support that shell enemies, eliminate MG nests and log bunkers asymmetrically, without danger, take prisoners on a company scale at the head of an infantry attack, blow through roadblocks, etc, etc. They fight, they get their licks in, they pay for themselves. Without getting lost or even being in any appreciable danger.

Naturally the 1/5th of the time they *are* in danger are more crucial for the overall course of the campaign. But the weapon delivers much of its lifetime combat power in asymmetric fights over a long time-scale where its survival chances are near 100% - and those fights deliver the big map movements, the giant surrounds and prisoner hauls, etc, that make armor operationally so effective - then also trades off with enemy armor in coin flip fashion, the other fifth of the time.

[jtcm]

Jean Norton Cru, the French historian (and veteran) of WWI, has something in his seminar work "Du temoignage": in modern warfare, as much as possible, no one aims for even match ups, but always for slaughter: infantry gets it from e.g. mgs or field arty, field arty gets it from heavy arty, heavy arty gets it from the air. Hence the immense strains and terrors of modern warfare; hence Norton Cru's disbelief of any "witness" account with chivalrous jousts, rather than mechanical boredom for the appliers, and abject terror for the sufferers, of oerwhelming violent means of destruction.

I don't mind this principle being applied in my CM scenarios. Long live assymetrical mismatches !

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[undead reindeer cavalry]

I was talking in the operational sense.

i was talking about tactical scale and especially considering the original viewpoint of pulverizing positions by firing with tanks from distance.

Sure it was tough tactically. Men got scared, killed, had to sweat and bleed etc. But in the operational sense, the breakthrough fight was easy, for tank-heavy formations.

it was never easy even on operational level. it required decisive massing of forces. divisional sectors well below 2 km. and it still was not a breeze.

the solution to breaching a defence was not "have more tanks".

But this is not because the tactical defenses were tough. Just as result of poor attacker combined arms. Once the allies fixed these issues, they generally broke through as easy as the Germans had.

what they (Soviets, other allies aren't really worth talking about) fixed was they massed & concentrated forces on a narrow sector.

I disagree. Breakthrough was easy, fighting reserves was hard.

armored clashes in operational depth are far more interesting, no question about it. in any case Soviets themselves considered the breaching of the tactical zone the hardest part of an offensive.

what comes to enemy counterattacks in operational depth against exploiting forces, doctrinally the Soviets preferred parrying enemy counterattacks in hammer & anvil style. let the enemy armor run into their non-tank defensive front and continue the exploit with their tank force (or work together with the non-tank force by flanking the enemy in hammer style).

yes, they considered it hard when the exploit was in final stages, with long fronts, long logistical tails, accumulated losses and committed echelons. basicly it was a reversal of a breakthru attack as the counterattacking enemy forces massed on a narrow sector, creating odds.

Tactical infantry AT defenses could sting at that level. But they did not stop tank army sized formations from breaking into the operational depth and encircling things. That took counter-concentrated tank reserves. And that is where the real fight happened.

it's about creating odds by massing forces, not about tanks at all as such.

the role tanks play in breakthroughs is that of an support arm. if there is a single arm considered decisive for a breakthrough, it is artillery (superiority of).

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Hence the tactic of staying at a distance and throwing HE until a position is pulverized but in this case, with a heavy anti-tank defense, and yet still applying.

That's what I was thinking.

- I think the other posters in this thread think you're talking about a much larger scale than I thought you were. I'm talking like CM scales.

in real world, on CM scale, the defences are not what you are seeing in CM. things were a lot more fortified. the solution was assault groups, not tanks firing from distance.

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[JasonC]

For URD on the difficulty of breakthrough, the Russians faced relatively smart German defense schemes, but at bottom their difficulty in the breakthrough phase was just one of bad tactical doctrine, which they overcame by using a "total dose" in a very messy and inefficient fashion. Which nevertheless usually sufficed, even if it was expensive, if sufficient force was applied. But the belief that the levels of concentration they used were *required* to achieve break-ins (distinct from defeating enemy reserves at operational depth) was false, and every other army in the war proved it. So did their own on more successful occasions.

What do I mean by poor tactical doctrine and a total dose solution? First I'll explain the latter term. It refers to "patent medicine" quackery, at bottom. When you don't have any idea what is wrong with the patient and therefore don't know what specific remedy the situation demands, the quack just takes everything he's ever used with any success and mixes them all together into one "total dose". The patient's body is supposed to respond to the right one, and if all the rest don't do any good, well, those are the breaks. In other words, you simply throw the kitchen sink at the problem, without any idea what object thrown will succeed in doing what. This is a dumb "rich" man's approach to combined arms (rich in a local tactical sense, obviously).

Now, this is very inefficient in force requirements and especially in losses sustained to achieve a given effect. But it will work, at least most of the time, if pushed far enough. Similarly, overpacking a frontage with the wrong weapon doesn't help, it instead raises own-side losses fruitlessly. But if you don't know which arm is the right weapon and which arm is the wrong one, you overload them all. All the wrong ones take outsized losses to no purpose, but the right one does the job.

Getting more specific, if you line up guns wheel to wheel and fire a million shells, you will get the other guy's attention. But you are approximately minimizing, not maximizing, his losses per shell fired. Because after the first 2 minutes, or 5 minutes tops, everyone is deep in their holes or already eviscertated. You then bounce the rubble around a lot while the men in the cellars get a bit deaf, but survive.

Similarly, when you put an entire rifle regiment on-line on a single kilometer and go over the top after the above, you aren't appreciably increasing the combat power of infantry on that frontage, compared to having one battalion there, and that picking its way forward carefully with 2 companies up and those 2 platoons up etc. But you do ensure that every enemy 105mm HE shell fired to defend that kilometer kills or wounds 3-5 times as many friendly infantrymen.

Massing gunfire in tubes, shells, and time simply doesn't linearly add artillery effect. Massing rifle manpower on limited space doesn't linearly add infantry effect. Trying to achieve breakthrough by those means alone is stupid; the Russians did it along with everything else because they didn't know what else to do to achieve breakthrough more readily.

Now, there were elements in the Russian army that knew better, and sometimes practiced it or got their formation to do so. The right way to lead a breakthrough with infantry is pathfinder recon by picked men, for example. The right artillery barrage is one that is short but very carefully planned using very specific and up to date intel on enemy positions, with the attack arriving in some areas while the barrage is still falling in others.

And the right way to use armor in a breakthrough is to commit it very early, heavily massed, on a narrow frontage chosen as to location and timing, so as to maximize surprise, not preparation by other arms.

The Russians had a few poor experiences early in the war (meaning through summer 1942 basically) in which they sent the armor first without any combined arms to speak of and into a poorly recon'ed enemy defense, and lost heavily without achieving break-in. They decided this meant that the right time to commit the armor was the second day, or at the earliest the second half of the first day for a leading echelon, and the right time for an exploitation tank army was more like day 3. This was too clever by half. It was a safety, low variance "play" designed to make sure the carefully prepared armor was intact for its operational exploitation role. But it wasn't the most efficient way to achieve break-in, tactically speaking, and it routinely led to epic losses to over-concentrated leading rifle formations even when the whole thing succeeded. It also typically gave the Germans an extra day to bring reserve panzer divisions to the fully IDed impending breakthrough site. If they had sufficient such reserves for the scale and spread of the attacks, they would therefore stop them soon - and the Russians would feel reinforced in the belief that break-in was the hard part.

This impression was also created by the fact that break *through* (not, "in") cannot be created at will against an enemy with sufficient overall operational strength, without first conducting prolonged attrition operations to set it up, or distracting his reserves to other sectors operationally speaking. This creates the impression that it is a mistake to just launch massed armor at one chosen spot and that expensive prep-work beforehand is essential.

Two time scales are being conflated in that, and two different processes. One being operational attrition of enemy reserves to prepare breakthrough, and the other being tactical break in. If the enemy is already prepared, tactical break in is easy - mass the armor and hit one place hard, armor leading, but with all arms support of course. If the enemy isn't already prepared, instead it is better to nibble and bleed him without even attempting one big breakthrough "push". Premature grand breakthrough attempts that aren't justified by the overall strategic situation, trying to "force" things prematurely, make it look harder than it is and drive the losses higher.

What does the nibbling process look like, instead? Infiltrate one rifle battalion and shell what they can see in the morning. Hold off local counterattacks meant to eject them from the enemy position. Repeat until insane. If you have the strategic odds, one month of that will bleed the enemy to inability to hold his whole front. You have to notice this, and notice where he is too thin, and then hit that spot, not all spots.

Whenever the Russians lead with massed armor on the first day, and carefully prepped the offensive in local intel terms, they broken in as easily as anybody else. They just tried massed infantry on the first day without surprise, N too many times, *as well*.

The characteristic mark of unclever, total dose inefficiency, is that the poor match ups are not *avoided*. The required ones are eventually tried and work. But tactically smart attacks jump right to that "chase" and skip all the regiment-per-kilometer mass slaughter part.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

i'm not going to reply by writing a thesis on Soviet breakthrough doctrine ranging from front to company level. i'll just state that Soviet doctrine and tactics were not crude or simplistic.

Soviets considered a number of different basic conditions, based mostly on the type & stance of enemy defences, under which offensives are to be fought. they considered a number of different basic types of attacks, with different applications of methods per circumstances (e.g. tactics). these certainly included things like throughout reconnaissance (at all levels), conscious deception thru direct actions (aiming both at attrition and relocation of enemy reserves), infiltration tactics and small level leading shock assault group tactics (e.g. rifle company + engineers + couple of tanks/assault guns + dedicated arty).

the biggest danger here, when looking at actual battles, is mistaking cause & effect and intent & deception. e.g. mistaking a tank-based breakthrough for merely an relative accident and the following success as a proof of the merits of tank-based breakthroughs as such, instead of taking it as Soviet decision based on doctrine to use that specific method under those specific conditions.

what comes to using a tank force for breakthrough missions there were specific conditions & aims under which Soviets saw it a valid method. what comes to intented breakthrough they basicly consisted of situations where enemy had only weak defences (hasty or mobile type), or enemy had atypically weak AT-defences or conditions favored the use of deep envelopment attack type.

Soviets did know how to apply different combined arms elements on different types of attacks. they did not use "one size fits all" methods. they knew conditions under which a tank force could achieve a breakthrough.

the regulations clearly state (e.g. in practice i quote the official regulations here) that an attack that couldn't normally be employed by tank force, can be employed when enemy AT-defences are weaker than normal. e.g. under normal conditions, against typical non-fortified field defences, enemy AT assets were so strong that utilization of a tank force for breakthrough mission was not considered sound.

EDIT: yes, it included stuff like firing only very short arty fires (just a number of minutes, not tens of minutes or hours), and breakthroughs that in totality took only 12 hours, not days. a two day breakthrough was considered under specific conditions, and it dealt mostly with enemy defences in depth not actual breakthrough of the tactical zone. the three day breakthroughs on wide fronts and just some km deep are exactly the lessons Soviets learned *doctrinally* in Decemenber 1941.

[JasonC]

Yes, I've read the doctrine documents, and the lessons learned reports urging greater tactical ingenuity (better arty intel, pathfinder recon, infiltration, right tool for job generally). But I've also noticed that those had to be urged on people who weren't doing them. And more to the point, that the Russians lost 5 times as much as other people conducting such operations. The Russians managed to lose more than the Germans in Bagration, their most successful set-piece of the entire war and the one that inflicted the largest losses on the Germans. That is really quite an accomplishment, if you look at the odds, the good sense in the overall operational plan, German poor prep and placement of reserves, all of it really. And that isn't an exception. The Russians routinely lose more than they inflict even in their successful offensives. They also succeed rapidly where they hit thin stuff, have surprise, and commit the armor early - just like every other army did routinely.

There is a reason, and it is those ridiculous packed frontage infantry assaults for the first 12 hours. If the Germans' attritional blind spot was throwing away too much armor in reckless premature counterattacks before they were justified, instead of using it more defensively when called for, the Russians' great attritional blind spot was throwing away masses of fine infantry in the opener of every set-piece offensive they ever tried, clear up to the battles of Berlin and Prague. They managed to lose over 400,000 men in the last 3 weeks of the war against utterly shattered opposition, with every combined arms advantage imaginable. Nobody else was, fighting the same enemy. I've explained how I believe that happens. How on this green earth do *you* think they managed that?

[undead reindeer cavalry]

i agree about the massing of infantry causing high losses, no argument there. it's not about breakthroughs solely though, but in general. what adds to it is enemy ability to read Soviet low level (e.g. division, regiment) communications. so you get a combo bonus of the defender massing arty fire on enemy infantry concentrations deploying for attack. that's not all there is to it, agreed. a big factor is the whole Stalinist control hierarchy, which causes a huge pressure on all levels for unnecessarily high aggressiveness. it leads to stupid desperate stuff in the sharp end and loss of c&c at the higher levels due to distorted reports.

in any case, Soviets did understand the role of armor in breakthrough attacks. typically they have 40+ tanks & SUs per attack sector km (not all in first echelon, but still). all those breakthrough tanks & assault guns were there for a reason.

as for comparing to other nations, i have trouble seeing it. who are these "all the others" who knew how to do it easy & fast with tanks?

yeah Mars was a mess and the encirclement of Stalingrad hit weak spots. at the same period you have allies at El Alamein with 500 000 shell arty fires lasting for hours & hours, still lead with infantry, have burning tanks fill the horizont and it is still taking days. when Soviets have the post-Kursk breakthroughs Allies have Italy. wow, what stunning excellence in Itality, makes one speechless. Bagration is costly, oh dear. at the same period you have western allies in Normandy doing marvels. reading about allied tank-lead breakthrough attempts like Goodwood makes my eyes bleed. and the glorious Cobra with stuff like strategic bombers, leading infantry divs, taking days against a totally shattered defender in a situation you have 4:1 theatre wide odds (and uh oh, and what's this stuff about armor waiting in 2nd echelong for exploit). and then the hard part is said to be the enemy armored counter attacks. the German armored counter attack to Cobra is a joke, only ordered by a coward who knows it's all pointless but wants to please Hitler so that he doesn't get hanged.

[nomorebullshyt]

For URD on the difficulty of breakthrough, the Russians faced relatively smart German defense schemes, but at bottom their difficulty in the breakthrough phase was just one of bad tactical doctrine, which they overcame by using a "total dose" in a very messy and inefficient fashion. Which nevertheless usually sufficed, even if it was expensive, if sufficient force was applied. But the belief that the levels of concentration they used were *required* to achieve break-ins (distinct from defeating enemy reserves at operational depth) was false, and every other army in the war proved it. So did their own on more successful occasions.

What do I mean by poor tactical doctrine and a total dose solution? First I'll explain the latter term. It refers to "patent medicine" quackery, at bottom. When you don't have any idea what is wrong with the patient and therefore don't know what specific remedy the situation demands, the quack just takes everything he's ever used with any success and mixes them all together into one "total dose". The patient's body is supposed to respond to the right one, and if all the rest don't do any good, well, those are the breaks. In other words, you simply throw the kitchen sink at the problem, without any idea what object thrown will succeed in doing what. This is a dumb "rich" man's approach to combined arms (rich in a local tactical sense, obviously).

Now, this is very inefficient in force requirements and especially in losses sustained to achieve a given effect. But it will work, at least most of the time, if pushed far enough. Similarly, overpacking a frontage with the wrong weapon doesn't help, it instead raises own-side losses fruitlessly. But if you don't know which arm is the right weapon and which arm is the wrong one, you overload them all. All the wrong ones take outsized losses to no purpose, but the right one does the job.

Getting more specific, if you line up guns wheel to wheel and fire a million shells, you will get the other guy's attention. But you are approximately minimizing, not maximizing, his losses per shell fired. Because after the first 2 minutes, or 5 minutes tops, everyone is deep in their holes or already eviscertated. You then bounce the rubble around a lot while the men in the cellars get a bit deaf, but survive.

Similarly, when you put an entire rifle regiment on-line on a single kilometer and go over the top after the above, you aren't appreciably increasing the combat power of infantry on that frontage, compared to having one battalion there, and that picking its way forward carefully with 2 companies up and those 2 platoons up etc. But you do ensure that every enemy 105mm HE shell fired to defend that kilometer kills or wounds 3-5 times as many friendly infantrymen.

Massing gunfire in tubes, shells, and time simply doesn't linearly add artillery effect. Massing rifle manpower on limited space doesn't linearly add infantry effect. Trying to achieve breakthrough by those means alone is stupid; the Russians did it along with everything else because they didn't know what else to do to achieve breakthrough more readily.

Now, there were elements in the Russian army that knew better, and sometimes practiced it or got their formation to do so. The right way to lead a breakthrough with infantry is pathfinder recon by picked men, for example. The right artillery barrage is one that is short but very carefully planned using very specific and up to date intel on enemy positions, with the attack arriving in some areas while the barrage is still falling in others.

And the right way to use armor in a breakthrough is to commit it very early, heavily massed, on a narrow frontage chosen as to location and timing, so as to maximize surprise, not preparation by other arms.

The Russians had a few poor experiences early in the war (meaning through summer 1942 basically) in which they sent the armor first without any combined arms to speak of and into a poorly recon'ed enemy defense, and lost heavily without achieving break-in. They decided this meant that the right time to commit the armor was the second day, or at the earliest the second half of the first day for a leading echelon, and the right time for an exploitation tank army was more like day 3. This was too clever by half. It was a safety, low variance "play" designed to make sure the carefully prepared armor was intact for its operational exploitation role. But it wasn't the most efficient way to achieve break-in, tactically speaking, and it routinely led to epic losses to over-concentrated leading rifle formations even when the whole thing succeeded. It also typically gave the Germans an extra day to bring reserve panzer divisions to the fully IDed impending breakthrough site. If they had sufficient such reserves for the scale and spread of the attacks, they would therefore stop them soon - and the Russians would feel reinforced in the belief that break-in was the hard part.

This impression was also created by the fact that break *through* (not, "in") cannot be created at will against an enemy with sufficient overall operational strength, without first conducting prolonged attrition operations to set it up, or distracting his reserves to other sectors operationally speaking. This creates the impression that it is a mistake to just launch massed armor at one chosen spot and that expensive prep-work beforehand is essential.

Two time scales are being conflated in that, and two different processes. One being operational attrition of enemy reserves to prepare breakthrough, and the other being tactical break in. If the enemy is already prepared, tactical break in is easy - mass the armor and hit one place hard, armor leading, but with all arms support of course. If the enemy isn't already prepared, instead it is better to nibble and bleed him without even attempting one big breakthrough "push". Premature grand breakthrough attempts that aren't justified by the overall strategic situation, trying to "force" things prematurely, make it look harder than it is and drive the losses higher.

What does the nibbling process look like, instead? Infiltrate one rifle battalion and shell what they can see in the morning. Hold off local counterattacks meant to eject them from the enemy position. Repeat until insane. If you have the strategic odds, one month of that will bleed the enemy to inability to hold his whole front. You have to notice this, and notice where he is too thin, and then hit that spot, not all spots.

Whenever the Russians lead with massed armor on the first day, and carefully prepped the offensive in local intel terms, they broken in as easily as anybody else. They just tried massed infantry on the first day without surprise, N too many times, *as well*.

The characteristic mark of unclever, total dose inefficiency, is that the poor match ups are not *avoided*. The required ones are eventually tried and work. But tactically smart attacks jump right to that "chase" and skip all the regiment-per-kilometer mass slaughter part.

What sort of agenda are you trying to fulfill?

The Bagration Operation was an absolute strategic and operational success. The Russian led armies executed a massive rolling barrage for at least twelve hours with follow up infantry regiments as Reconnaissance in Force. The rest is history: on the third anniversary of the Axis invasion Bagration achieved a 400 mile advance in less than four weeks. From Vitebsk to the plains before Warsaw! And the Ukrainian Front then advanced to Lvov and Brest making the frontage nearly 700 miles wide. Yes, the Russian allied forces lost over 750,000 but the German and Axis lost 350,000 and were all in all thrown out of Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania. War is hell on earth, and when attacking the attacker always takes higher losses because of coming out to kill the enemy is nasty business.

Yes Jason, you are correct, the Russian allies payed a high prices for victory over the axis. Attack after attack against German Nazis fanatics was costly, especially when no one would give quarter.

Your statement "The only cases where you see tank-heavy forces repulsed in the breakthrough fight is early war British and Soviet attacks." is false. Without writing a thesis for you I will refer you to the Axis Operation Citadel. And the Russian Mars Operation had multiple purposes. There were goals for a breakout, but even when it became obvious there would be no breakout, the equally important goal was as an Operational Soak Off of German forces away from Stalingrad aka Uranus which was the Main Event according to Vasilevsky, and everything that needed to be done for surprise and success in the South had to be done, as it was.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

his point is that Soviets sometimes keep too much armor in the 2nd echelon, waiting for the breakthrough, instead of committing it to the breakthrough battle. it's a valid point and sometimes a very clear error when those armor assets are just waiting while infantry is losing in the grinder. at worst those assets are committed a day or two later anyway with the result that both 1st and 2nd echelon is wasted, and up to an entire front is in practice consumed.

it doesn't mean that Soviets wouldn't understand any of it, wouldn't be able to practice their doctrine or that their breakthrough operations would be clearly inferior to everyone else (for who it would be trivial).

Berlin is the worst case to make any sort of generalizations of, as it is clearly a case of stupid final rushing commanded from the very top. at breakthrough sectors rifle divisions have 600 METER sectors, and there are only 20 tanks/assault guns per km (while it was not that rare in other operations there to be 70+ tanks per km).

[Cuirassier]

URC,

as for comparing to other nations, i have trouble seeing it. who are these "all the others" who knew how to do it easy & fast with tanks?

yeah Mars was a mess and the encirclement of Stalingrad hit weak spots. at the same period you have allies at El Alamein with 500 000 shell arty fires lasting for hours & hours, still lead with infantry, have burning tanks fill the horizont and it is still taking days. when Soviets have the post-Kursk breakthroughs Allies have Italy. wow, what stunning excellence in Itality, makes one speechless. Bagration is costly, oh dear. at the same period you have western allies in Normandy doing marvels. reading about allied tank-lead breakthrough attempts like Goodwood makes my eyes bleed. and the glorious Cobra with stuff like strategic bombers, leading infantry divs, taking days against a totally shattered defender in a situation you have 4:1 theatre wide odds (and uh oh, and what's this stuff about armor waiting in 2nd echelong for exploit). and then the hard part is said to be the enemy armored counter attacks. the German armored counter attack to Cobra is a joke, only ordered by a coward who knows it's all pointless but wants to please Hitler so that he doesn't get hanged.

Well the Germans were the only ones to lead with tanks consistently. And whenever they had the odds to actually an attack with a realistic chance of success, they broke through the tactical defenses easy. Even when you look at battles such as Mortain or the counterattacks by the Panzer Brigades in Lorraine (scenarios where they had no business attacking), they don't have trouble making the initial break in. Certainly they aren't not stopped by AT guns. Instead they break in some kilometers, get infantry stripped by tons of indirect artillery, and then the armor is hunted down by TD's and bazooka infantry, well within the defended zone.

The Soviets also put Tank Corps in first echelon a few times, and such attacks were successful. It was only when Panzer Corps sized counterattacks showed up that the Soviet armor was heavily attritted and slowed down.

Goodwood was of course bloody. But the British had a notorious fetish with treating armor like cavalry and using it independently in unsuitable terrain.

American breakthrough doctrine was solid and worked fine. Sure, they led with infantry, keeping the AD's in reserve. But the Americans also had super-reactive artillery and tons of it. Independent tank battalions and TD's also boosted the armor strength of some infantry divisions up to AD strength for short periods.

So basically I see two effective ways for breakthrough. One is to run the enemy off his feet with an armor heavy attack, achieving a cheap and quick breakthrough, and then hoping you have enough to defeat arriving reserves. Essentially this is the method best demonstrated by the Germans.

The other good method is to efficiently bleed the enemies frontline strength, effectively running him out of reserves through infantry probes heavily supported by arty. Call this the American way. Both work and both are relatively inexpensive in human and armor cost terms (the attrition method obviously requires lots of artillery).

And Bagration is notable for its failure to achieve a favorable kill/loss ratio. Sure it was an operational success, smashing the Germans etc. But no one else in their greatest operational victories accomplished this. The early war German victories achieved favorable ratios. And so did Falaise.

So as long as the terrain allows armor to deploy fully, and the armor is supported by all arms, massed armor attacks cheaper and quicker than trying the same with massed infantry numbers.

Sorry if this is all over the place, but there are lots of points to address.

[Cuirassier]

nomorebullshyt,

and when attacking the attacker always takes higher losses because of coming out to kill the enemy is nasty business.

Yes Jason, you are correct, the Russian allies payed a high prices for victory over the axis. Attack after attack against German Nazis fanatics was costly, especially when no one would give quarter.

Your statement "The only cases where you see tank-heavy forces repulsed in the breakthrough fight is early war British and Soviet attacks." is false. Without writing a thesis for you I will refer you to the Axis Operation Citadel. And the Russian Mars Operation had multiple purposes. There were goals for a breakout, but even when it became obvious there would be no breakout, the equally important goal was as an Operational Soak Off of German forces away from Stalingrad aka Uranus which was the Main Event according to Vasilevsky, and everything that needed to be done for surprise and success in the South had to be done, as it was.

No attackers did not always take higher casualties. Both the western allies and the Germans achieved favorable kill/loss ratios when they were winning operationally. The Soviets didn't. Thats the point.

And I wrote that the only case you see tank-heavy forces defeated within the tactical defense are early war British and Soviet attacks, not JasonC. Contrary to what you think, Mars and Kursk are not counter-examples to this. In fact, both campaigns support what I'm saying. In Mars, the Soviets tore big holes in the front and broke through. But the Germans had enough PD's to slide into place and defeat the Soviets in detail (central positioning, mobile counterattacks etc). Similarly, the Kursk offensive was stopped in the operational depths, not the tactical. The Germans broke through the tactical defenses in a matter of days, and had plenty of runners to complete the encirclement if Soviet armored operational reserves had been absent.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

And whenever they had the odds to actually an attack with a realistic chance of success, they broke through the tactical defenses easy.

it was easy only when the defences were weak, and not necessarily even then.

Even when you look at battles such as Mortain or the counterattacks by the Panzer Brigades in Lorraine (scenarios where they had no business attacking), they don't have trouble making the initial break in. Certainly they aren't not stopped by AT guns. Instead they break in some kilometers, get infantry stripped by tons of indirect artillery, and then the armor is hunted down by TD's and bazooka infantry, well within the defended zone.

exactly. but fighting thru some outposts & roadblocks into the defensive zone is no breakthrough. it's actually fighting thru the tactical defensive zone into enemy operational depth.

AT guns are naturally just one part of an AT defence.

And Bagration is notable for its failure to achieve a favorable kill/loss ratio.

yet it's not notable when at the same time most allied operations in Normady fail to achieve it as well?

BTW if you are after "killed & missing" Bagration did have favorable ratio. it's the "sick & wounded" which tilts it the other way.

So as long as the terrain allows armor to deploy fully, and the armor is supported by all arms, massed armor attacks cheaper and quicker than trying the same with massed infantry numbers.

which is quite different to tanks always being able to break thru enemy defences with great ease (as long as they are not Soviets).

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Similarly, the Kursk offensive was stopped in the operational depths, not the tactical. The Germans broke through the tactical defenses in a matter of days, and had plenty of runners to complete the encirclement if Soviet armored operational reserves had been absent.

at north they never broke thru the tactical defensive zone. at south they had two penetrations thru the tactical zone, but would have faced further defensive belts.